The Scotland Yard detective investigates an elusive pair of murders in this “intriguing, appealing” entry in the New York Times–bestselling series (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In a rainy ditch in a Devon wood, a hitchhiker is found dead. Almost a year later, on another rainy night, another murder; this time, however, the victim is found just outside a pub called I Am the Only Running Footman, near Berkeley Square in London’s fashionable Mayfair District. Devon policeman Brian Macalvie believes the two murders are connected. And thus, detective Richard Jury is drawn into the so-called Porphyria killings. From the streets of London to the village of Somers Abbas, Jury and Macalvie are joined by the stolid if hypochondriac Sergeant Wiggins and the reluctant Melrose Plant. They meet in another pub, the Mortal Man, and, amidst the clatter and cry of the Warboys family, they ponder a labyrinthine set of clues.

Sheila Broome died in the wintry isolation of the Devon countryside. Ivy Childess was strangled in the heart of London's Mayfair. Devon's stubborn Divisional Police Commander is convinced both killings are the work of one man.

Book seven of the suspenseful Richard Jury Mystery series! Around bleak Dartmoor, where the Hound of the Baskervilles once bayed, three children have been brutally murdered. Now Richard Jury of Scotland Yard joins forces with a hot-tempered local constable named Brian Macalvie to track down the killer. The trail begins at a desolate pub, Help the Poor Struggler. It leads straight to the estate of Lady Jessica, a ten-year-old orphaned heiress who lives with her mysterious uncle and ever-changing series of governesses. And as suspense spreads across the forbidding landscape, an old injustice returns to haunt Macalvie…with clues that link a murder in the distant past with a killing yet to come.

They were two young women, strikingly similar in life...strikingly similar in death. Both strangled with their own scarves--one in Devon, one outside of a fashionable Mayfair pub called I Am the Only Running Footman. Richard Jury teams up with Devon's irascible local divisional commander, Brian Macalvie, to solve the murders. With nothing to tie the women together but the fatal scarves, Jury pursues his only suspect...and a trail of tragedy that just might lead to yet another victim. And her killer...

A body in a bureau sends the Scotland Yard detective on a vexing investigation in this “absorbing and stylishly crafty” mystery (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). When a dismembered corpse is found in the compartments of an antique writing bureau, Marshall Trueblood, recipient of the precious piece of furniture, is the first to protest: “I bought the desk, not the body, send it back.” But the dead body of Simon Lean presents more pressing concerns. Who, for example, would want to kill the greedy nephew of the wealthy Lady Summerston? Leave it to Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard to suggest a connection to the murder of brassy Limehouse lady named Sadie Driver, found dead near Wapping Old Stairs . . . if that stone-cold body on the slipway is really Sadie. Not even her brother, Tommy, on a visit from Gravesend, can swear to it.