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Summary
Summary
The latest in New York Times bestselling author Martha Grimess Richard Jury mystery series
The dog came back.
This is a joke, right?
No, it isnt. . . . So do you want to hear the rest of it? Dumbly, Jury nodded.
The rest of it is told by Harry Johnson, a stranger who sits down next to Richard Jury as hes drinking in a London pub called the Old Wine Shades. Over three successive nights Harry spins this complicated story about a good friend of his whose wife and son (and dog) disappeared one day as they were viewing property in Surrey. Theyve been missing for nine monthsno trace, no clue, no lead as to what happened. Hes a fascinating bloke, this Harry Johnsonrich, handsome, unattached, and brainy about the esoteric subject of quantum mechanics, a field in which the vanished womans husband, Hugh Gault, excels: Hes an authority on string theory, which has some pretty funny notions about the nature of reality. Jury wonders, Is Harry Johnson winding him up? Or did it really happen? The dog did come backbut how? And from where? And when Jury investigates, all seems to be just as Harry described it. Until they find the body.
Praise for Martha Grimes:
One of the established masters of the genre.
Newsweek
Grimess] gift for evoking mood and emotion is as keen as her talent for inventing a demanding puzzle, and solving it.
The Wall Street Journal
Grimes] excels at creating a haunting atmosphere andcharacters both poignant and preposterous.
USA Today
Grimes is gifted at exploring the private, sometimes horrifying, yet utterly mundane thoughts of ordinary people.
San Francisco Chronicle
Author Notes
Martha Grimes was born on May 2, 1931 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Maryland.
The idea for Martha Grimes' first British detective novel, The Man with a Load of Mischief (1981), was inspired by the name of a British pub she noticed while leafing through a travel book. A longtime Anglophile, she has continued to use a British pub as both the title and part of the setting in each subsequent novel in the series which features Scotland Yard Detective Richard Jury, his assistant, Melrose Plant, and Plant's interfering Aunt Agatha. The Anodyne Necklace (1983) won her the Nero Wolfe Award. Her other works include The Stargazey, The Case Has Been Altered, The End of the Pier, Biting the Moon, and Dust. Her title, Vertigo 42, made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2014.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of bestseller Grimes's compelling 20th Richard Jury mystery, the Scotland Yard detective is on suspension because he decided to save lives rather than wait for a warrant in his previous outing, The Winds of Change (2004). With time on his hands, Jury is ensnared by the intriguing tale spun by Harry Johnson, a man who, apparently, just happens upon him in a London pub, the Old Wine Shades. Despite himself, Jury is drawn in by Johnson's account of the baffling disappearance of a mother, her autistic son and their dog-and the more baffling reappearance of the pet nine months later. The detective diligently follows every lead to determine the fate of the missing people, even as Johnson's digressions into the paradoxes of quantum physics lead Jury to question the truth of the man's narrative. The scheme Jury ultimately detects is ingeniously clever and sufficiently consistent with the personalities Grimes has created to overcome disbelief. The author's gift at melding suspense, logical twists and wry humor makes this one of the stronger entries in this deservedly popular series. 8-city author tour. Mystery Guild main selection. (On sale Feb. 21) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The Richard Jury series (this is the twentieth installment) is known for having an English pub in some sort of starring or supporting role, reflected in the title. In the latest, the pub of the title is the setting for a very long pub tale that sounds for all the world like a shaggy dog story. A man in the pub, with a shaggy dog at his feet, tells Jury (for unknown reasons, except sociability) about a friend of his whose wife, son, and dog all disappeared nine months previously. The clincher to the story is that the dog came back. New Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Jury lets the man (a physicist whose disappeared friend is also a physicist) talk for three nights about the disappearance. Jury gets drawn into investigating the case, which he mostly doubts, until a body turns up. Very improbable and creaky but still certain to be of interest to loyal Jury fans. --Connie Fletcher Copyright 2006 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Supt. Richard Jury's 20th case begins as the shaggiest of shaggy-dog stories, moves through a critique of quantum mechanics and ends in a truly mystical realm. In a London pub, a stranger named Harry Johnson tells Jury (The Grave Maurice, 2002, etc.) a story that isn't really a story. Nine months ago, physics professor Hugh Gault lost his whole family when all three of its members--his wife Glynnis, their autistic son Robbie and their dog Mungo--vanished during the middle of a house-hunting trip to Surrey. Though Hugh hired detectives, there was no sign of any of them--until recently, when Mungo suddenly popped up. The story, as Harry points out, isn't complete because the riddle lacks an ending or an explanation, and Jury, his curiosity piqued to the point of obsession by the clues Harry teasingly doles out, can't supply them. Neither can his aristocratic friend Melrose Plant or the rest of his whimsical hangers-on, though they duly ponder the puzzle--Melrose even goes as far as taking a trip to Tuscany to meet the owner of one of the houses Glynnis was to visit--and ask questions. The answers, when they finally come, have less to do with the wheels of justice than with superstrings, Gödel's incompleteness theory and Schrödinger's cat. Even fans who can't appreciate the passing strangeness of this truly special adventure will be won over by a precocious little girl and a dog of rare intelligence. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Grimes's 19th Richard Jury mystery is one of the most complex and entertaining in the series. Temporarily suspended for violating procedure, Richard encounters Harry Johnson in a pub and is told an intriguing story about a physicist's wife, his autistic son, and his dog disappearing while they were house hunting, only for the dog to reappear nine months later. Richard and his amateur sleuth friend Melrose Plant look into the disappearances and discover more and more puzzles. This multilayered psychological mystery is more serious-minded than some in the series, with frequent references to physicist Niels Bohr and Henry James, though still essentially entertaining. The dog, Mungo, is as fascinating as the humans and even takes over the narration at times. John Lee's reading style may be too arch for some, but it is especially fitting for the meetings between Melrose and his indolent, snooty friends. Highly recommended for all popular collections.-Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
