A construction crew uncovers two skeletons, a woman and a baby, in Blackfriars Lane, London. Apparently, the woman and child were seeking shelter during the Blitz in the entrance to a pub, the Blue Last, when a bomb hit. This discovery, in Grimes' latest Richard Jury mystery (the seventeenth), is linked to a fraud that Detective Chief Inspector Haggerty believes has been perpetrated by Britain's premier brewing magnate. Haggerty is convinced that the granddaughter to the boozy fortune is actually an impostor and that the real heiress was the tiny body recovered at the bomb site. A fresh murder, that of a prominent merchant banker and son of the former owner of the Blue Last, tightens suspense. Jury is asked to investigate, a task that reopens the wounds of memory, since his parents were killed in World War II. The investigation takes Jury through the streets of London and occasions the melancholic, contemplative inspector's musings on the people, famous and infamous, who once crowded the British capital. Jury in Cheapside, at the site of the old Mermaid Tavern, for example, imagines Beaumont, Fletcher, Shakespeare, and Webster all debating his case making outrageous witticisms about those involved in it. This is vintage Jury: a historic pub, a crew of well fleshed out characters, and the inspector himself, sensitive and caustic as ever, an old-time seer able to explain the unexplainable. --Connie Fletcher

After a three-year hiatus, Grimes returns with her 17th Richard Jury mystery. Here, Jury's old friend Mickey Haggerty, a London cop, persuades him to investigate the murder of Simon Croft, perhaps killed because he was writing a book that would expose a 50-year-old deception, the substitution of the granddaughter of magnate Oliver Tynedale for the child of her nanny during the London blitz. When he goes to Tynedale Lodge, Jury finds a nine-year-old girl, Oliver's ward, who may also be a murder target but the evidence of miscreancy is inconclusive. There is an odd subplot that sends Jury's friends Melrose Plant and Marshall Trueblood to Italy in search of a painting's provenance, plus the usual assortment of eccentric characters and two winning children. The plot is as devious and convoluted as any Jury mystery, but readers who aren't Renaissance fans may find the side trip to Italy superfluous. For mystery and Jury aficionados. Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Benny Keegan, 12, sleeps under Waterloo Bridge and scrapes together a living running errands. His best friend is Gemma Trimm, 9, imaginative ward of elderly magnate Oliver Tynedale. Gemma, who likens herself to Little Nell, claims someone is trying to kill her. But Inspector Richard Jury (The Lamorna Wink, 1999, etc.) is visiting Tynedale Lodge with other ends: to investigate the murder of Simon Croft, son of Tynedale's friend and partner Francis, and to probe a potential 60-year-old crime uncovered by DCI Mickey Haggerty. London's last bombsite, a pub called The Blue Last, has finally been excavated, revealing the bodies of Tynedale's daughter Alexandra and a baby. Alexandra had been at the pub with Kitty, her nanny, and their very young daughters, Maisie and Erin, respectively. The surviving little girl has grown up as Maisie Tynedale. But Haggerty thinks she is Erin. Would Kitty kill to protect her secret? As usual, Grimes crowds her tale with unexpected characters-there's a chapter told from the perspective of Benny's dog, Sparky-and crisscrossing subplots. Haggerty is rapidly dying of cancer; his wife Liza is Jury's old flame. Haunted by childhood memories of the Blitz, Jury seeks answers about his mother. Meanwhile, his sidekick Melrose Plant journeys to Florence with the obligatory wealthy madcaps to authenticate a work of Renaissance art. It's Benny's five employers, all with colorful backstories, who eventually point Jury and Melrose to the surprising but logical solution. Some of the interweaving is ingenious, though loose ends still dangle. Even so, Grimes's delicious people portraits and elegant prose are as entertaining as ever. Author tour

Reading Grimes's 16th Richard Jury novel (The Case Has Altered, etc.) is like watching a good movie on TV constantly interrupted by commercials. The author used to produce well-crafted, atmospheric works with delightful characters, but in recent years they've become unnecessarily long, overpopulated with minor characters (including Melrose), who take up a lot of time while contributing little to the crime at hand. The premise here is promising enough: the bodies of a woman and an infant turn up in the last unredeveloped bomb site in London (a pub called the Blue Last), victims of the final heavy German bombing of WWII. The woman, identified as Alexandra Tyndale, was the daughter of a wealthy brewing magnate; the infant was the daughter of Alexandra's nanny. Or was the infant, in fact, Alexandra's daughter, whom the nanny swapped with her own child to make her heir to the Tyndale fortune? It's all quite Victorian. Called in by his friend DCI Mickey Haggerty to help on the case, Richard Jury soon finds himself involved with a murder that could be related. Two children, Grimes's usual pathologically precocious tots, enter the action, as does Melrose with a whole subplot of his own. Because of this excess baggage, the reader must wait impatiently for the mystery to resume. A far-fetched solution will satisfy only the author's staunchest fans. 8-city author tour. (Sept. 10) Forecast: Despite the weakness of this title, Grimes is impervious to negative criticism; like others in the series, this one should hit bestseller charts. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved