Many detective novels ignore issues such as responsibility and justice; solving the puzzle is sufficient for the detective and those around him. When the detective is as intelligent and sensitive as Richard Jury, however, the solution of the mystery is no cause for celebration and self-congratulation. In fact, Grimes never has Jury reveal the murderer's identity in one of those familiar scenes in which all the suspects are gathered together to hear him say, "The reason I called you all here is . . . ." Murder does not make Jury happy, even when the murderer is brought to justice.

Justice is an important issue in the novels, as Jury's very name suggests.

He explicitly states his own concern with justice at the end of the second Jury novel, The Old Fox Deceiv'd (1982).

Jury wonders aloud whether his is a "false vocation," for he sees the murderer in the novel...