What a shame. I was initially delighted to see a new installment of this long running series, but something has gone badly wrong here. Nevertheless, my thanks go to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The Richard Jury series was wildly successful for decades; I first began reading it in the 1990s. I was pleased to see the familiar characters, particularly Wiggins, the hypochondriacal assistant to our protagonist, as well as Jury’s friend Melrose Plant—with a brief showing of Plant’s domineering and pretentious Aunt Agatha—and Cyril the Cat, the feline that makes Jury’s boss apoplectic, yet is never truly banished. And that’s about all of the joy I found here at all.

Was there an editor involved at any point in this process? Because it sure doesn’t look like it. What a miserable jumble of elements. I couldn’t tell who was coming and who was going. At first I thought it might just be me, so I backtracked, but…nope.

I had access to an audio galley, and if there had been anything here to save, the reader probably could have done it, but the reader couldn’t rewrite the book.

Diehard fans, stay away from this thing. It will break your heart.