The Richard Jury Mysteries continues with this "richly textured story" (The New York Times Book Review) following Richard as he investigates a complicated double murder mystery.
The sun, smoking behind a haze of cloud, threw off a light of burnished pewter. Mysteriously lit, it was as if the watery, colorless land refused drabness, stood determinedly against dimishment. This is a landscape that can easily deceive, a landscape that volunteers nothing-much like the patrons of the only pub for miles around called The Case Has Altered.
The Lincolnshire fenlands are the right setting for Richard Jury's latest case, a mystifying double murder. The body of one woman is found on the wash; another woman lies floating in a canal in Windy Fen. Both women are connected with Fengate: Dorcas Reese, a servant; Verna Dunn, the louche ex-wife of the owner, Max Owen, a man with a passion for antiques. The case is only further complicated when the principal suspect turns out to be Jenny Kennington, a woman Jury has long loved. Will he be able to solve the case or is it hitting too close to home?