The Ring

Trow tries too hard to be funny in his unimpressive fifth Victorian whodunit featuring private detectives Matthew Grand and James Batchelor (after 2017’s The Island). When the wife of timber importer Selwyn Bing fails to return to London following a visit to an aunt, and Bing subsequently receives a note demanding £5,000 pounds for her safe return, he turns to Grand and Batchelor for help. The detectives’ inquiries coincide with a series of grim discoveries of portions of a woman’s body, starting with the left part of a torso, recovered from the Thames. Meanwhile, murderer William Bisgrove escapes from Broadmoor, the notorious hospital for the criminally insane. In one gratuitous scene, the banter between Batchelor, who’s pretending to be a member of the Thames River Police, and a shrewd landlady, who asks him pointed questions, amuses, but it otherwise jars in a crime novel involving a gruesome murder, as do the antics of a bungling maid. The final, surprising reveal compensates in part for the pedestrian sleuthing. Trow has done a better job of getting the tone right in earlier series entries. [em](Jan.) [/em]