Vertigo Fourty Two

Martha GrimesPublisher: Scribner , New York , 2014
ISBN:9781476724027 Classification: MGri

Booklist Review *Starred Review* Grimes, recipient of the Grand Master Award of the Mystery Writers of America in 2012, shows what mastery is all about in this compelling new Richard Jury mystery. To begin with, Grimes is superlative at describing the physical world; the view, for example, from the champagne bar called Vertigo 42 on the forty-second story of a London skyscraper lets Grimes give the reader both an overview of the Thames and its history in a few evocative sentences. And, when Grimes takes us into interiors, whether it's a posh country home or a down-at-the-heels flat, she is like Dickens in linking human character to habitat. Vertigo 42, as a setting, is a deliberate reminder (developed throughout the book) of Hitchcock's film. It also is a reminder to the widower who summons New Scotland Yard Superintendent Jury to the bar that the man's wife, who suffered from vertigo, died 17 years ago in a staircase fall that the inquest ruled an accident. The widower, Tom Williamson, is haunted by his wife's death, which he is convinced was murder, and asks Jury to reinvestigate. Williamson is convinced that his wife's death is linked to that of a child who drowned in their pool five years earlier. Two other murders occupy Jury as he confronts the puzzle of the past, and Grimes ingeniously links all of them to Hitchcock. One of the highlights in a stellar series.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2014 Booklist

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