I'm late to Martha Grimes' Richard Jury series; this is the first one I've read. I love British crime novels, and this one is a rather nice combination of police procedural and "cozy". Jury, a superintendent with the London Metropolitan police, is called in to help out with a murder committed in a small village outside London. A woman's body is found with no identification, murdered in the parking lot of a local pub called, "The Black Cat". But the pub is not the only "black cat" in the story. Three others pop up during the story, as well as a couple of dogs. Grimes writes some of the story in the animals' voices, which I liked but other reviewers seem not to.
Three women, all beautiful "escorts" and favoring really, really expensive shoes, turn up dead in the story. Jury eventually figures out the murderer but not without help from old friends, and one "enemy", Harry Johnson. Evidently, Johnson has figured in to previous Jury stories, as have the old friends. With any on-going series, jumping-in in the middle is slightly daunting to the new reader, but Grimes has a good way of identifying who's who.
It's a good read and I'll look for other, earlier Jury novels.Get more detail about The Black Cat: A Richard Jury Mystery (Richard Jury Mysteries).
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