Brian Macalvie of the Devon and Cornwall police takes this failure especially hard, since he had headed up the investigation three years ago when Flora disappeared one day from the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Scott's step-daughter has vanished. His wife Mary has died. Joined by the intrepid Melrose Plant, now a gardener at Angel Gate, Jury and Macalvie rake over the present and the past in a pub near Launceston called the Winds of Change. In a case where the victim is as hard to identify as the murderer and where no one is exactly who he seems, how can Jury be sure that he himself hasn't been duped in some game of illusion? His hospital experience ( Grave Mauric e, 2002) may still be fresh in his mind, but Scotland Yard's Richard Jury wastes no time in involving himself in another case, the murder of an anonymous five-year-old girl, shot in the back. Who could have done such a thing? When he learns that the child was found near a house frequented by pedophiles, he's convinced there's a link. His suspicions grow stronger when the man supposedly behind the operation turns out to be the father of a child who mysteriously disappeared three years before from a country estate. Intuition isn't proof, however, and Jury enlists the aid of his friend Melrose Plant, Lord Ardry, to help him work through the connections. Discussions frequently bring either or both to a local pub, called the Winds of Change. Grimes works in her usual complement of British literary allusions and smartly juxtaposes Plant's easygoing manner and sardonic wit (his unintentional ability to provoke contrariness in children and animals is laugh-out-loud funny) against Jury's somewhat solemn, ruminative personality. As it turns out, nothing is quite what it seems at the beginning in this stellar entry in an outstanding series. Stephanie Zvirin Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Grimes is gifted at exploring the private, sometimes horrifying, yet utterly mundane thoughts of ordinary people. -- San Francisco Chronicle One of the established masters of the genre. -- Newsweek [Grimes] excels at creating a haunting atmosphere and characters both poignant and preposterous. -- USA Today [Grimes s] gift for evoking mood and emotion is as keen as her talent for inventing a demanding puzzle. -- The Wall Street Journal Martha Grimes is the bestselling author of eighteen Richard Jury mysteries and also the acclaimed fiction Foul Matter, Cold Flat Junction, Hotel Paradise, The End of the Pier , and The Train Now Departing . 1 The blood spatter on the little girl?s dress mixed with the pattern of bluebells as if someone had thrown a handful of petals across her back. Richard Jury was down on one knee in a gutter of a North London street, at the end of a dingy street called Hester Street, looking at the body, the face to one side, not quite believing it. He studied her?the pale hair, the eyes his hand had closed, the caked rivulet of blood that had run from the right side of her mouth, running down and across her neck and soaking the small white collar of the dress with the bluebells. His torch had made out the color. Even the blood could have looked blue in this difficult light. He thought it again?that the blood spots could have been petals. It all seemed miniaturized as if everything?dress, body, blood? were part of some magical tale that reduced proportions, an Alice in Wonderland sort of story, so that at any moment the little girl would wake, the blood draw back into the mouth like a vapor trail and the dark stains on the dress dissipate, leaving only the flowers. No coat. It was the first day of March and she wore no coat. ?A runaway, possibly?? suggested Phyllis Nancy, the police pathologist, who was kneeling beside him. Jury knew it was a question to which she knew the answer. ?No, I don?t think so; the dress looks new, that or very well kept, you know, washed and ironed.? What he was saying was rather ridiculous for who cared if the dress was ironed, but he felt almost as if he had to keep saying things, anything, just as Phyllis had done with her question. To say something, anything, was to hold the poor child?s reality at bay. ?Yes, you?re right.? The hem of her own dress was lying in a puddle of rain, and the rain?s detritus. It had rained heavily an hour ago. Jury pulled the dress out of the muddy water. It was a long green velvet gown. When she had left her car and come toward the scene, she had looked regal in that dress. Emerald earrings, green velvet?she had been paged in the Royal Albert Hall and left immediately. She had knelt beside him, on both knees, nothing to kneel on except the hard surface of the street itself. Her kneeling took almost the form of supplication. ?I?ll turn her over. Would you help me?? He nodded. ?Sure.? She did not need help. Jury had seen her manipulate bodies bigger than his own, turn them this way and that as if they were feathers. She didn?t, he supposed