The Knowledge

May 28, 2018
West’s melodious British baritone smoothly sorts through the complicated plot and numerous characters in Grimes’s 24th Richard Jury mystery. Det. Supt. Richard Jury is hunting for the man who shot and killed American physicist David Moffitt and his wife, Rebecca, in front of London’s Artemis Club, a swanky art galley cum casino. The investigation leads Jury and his team to Africa following a tip from one of the kids in the Filth, a rough-and-tumble pack of kids, who spotted the murderer boarding a plane to Nairobi. West effortlessly transitions from one quirky character to the next. He gives delightful accents to British gentry such as Jury’s sidekick, Melrose Plant, as well as to Plant’s servants, Ruthven and Martha. He’s even credible as the boys and girls of the Filth, particularly 10-year-old Patty, a competent schemer who tails the murderer as far as Nairobi and Tanzania. West is just as convincing when providing the voice of the hip owner of the art galley as he is in rendering the cool and confident cabbie who knows the streets of London backwards and forwards. West’s mastery of Grimes’s wit, twisting plot, and zany characters will keep listeners hooked from start to finish. An Atlantic Monthly hardcover.

February 12, 2018
The shooting death of American physicist David Moffitt and his wife, Rebecca, outside the Artemis Club, an exclusive London casino and art gallery, propels MWA Grand Master Grimes’s solid 24th mystery featuring Scotland Yard’s Det. Supt. Richard Jury (after 2014’s Vertigo 42). Jury reads about the crime in the newspaper the next day. Meanwhile, a gritty version of the Baker Street Irregulars, children who hang out at train stations and Heathrow and act as informants, have the shooter in their sights; 10-year-old Patty Haigh befriends the killer and accompanies him to Nairobi, Kenya, where Melrose Plant, one of Jury’s team, soon follows. Jury’s investigation centers on gem smuggling, tax dodging, and greed. The real mystery is how to find a cab drivers’ pub, the Knowledge, so secret that even Scotland Yard can’t force its patrons to reveal its location. Though the plot gets a bit muddled midway through, readers will appreciate the elements that have made this a long-running bestselling series, notably a complicated case and distinctive characters. Agent: Steve Sheppard, Cowen Debaets Abrahams & Sheppard.