Grimes, who has taught courses in detective fiction at Johns Hopkins University, displays an awareness of the conventions of detective fiction but seems to consciously work around its usual weaknesses. In the character of Richard Jury, Grimes skillfully handles the problems of characterization of a fictional detective, who must be morally and intellectually superior without becoming an inhuman paragon. Jury is not only believable and admirable, but also likable, primarily because of Grimes's focus on his emotions. He is thoroughly professional but is unable to avoid personal reactions; once, for example, when Agatha interferes with his examination of the scene of a murder, he loses his customary patience and yells to Wiggins to handcuff her (much to Wiggins's surprise for he, as Jury knows, never carries handcuffs).

Readers of detective fiction are always concerned with whether an author has "played fair" with them: that is, whether the author...