Martha Grimes delivers an outstanding police procedural, featuring Melrose Plant, Marshall Trueblood and other characters who are always on hand for Detective Superintendent Richard Jury and his pal, Lord Ardery. This latest installment in the series, THE KNOWLEDGE, begins with a double murder committed in front of an exclusive gambling casino and gallery, the Artemis Club, which is run by Leonard Zane. Patrons are screened before they are allowed to attend and only after a complete background check. The crime was committed by a man who flags down Robbie Parsons’ black cab and orders him to just drive.

Robbie is a young man who belongs to a ragtag group of kids resembling the Baker Street Irregulars and are the only Londoners who know what and where “the knowledge” is. Even Jury has never been able to track down its location. These young people are black cab drivers who flood the London streets and have to pass a grueling test of the city’s geography before they can get a license.

"The characters are well drawn and believable. Readers will find it hard to put the book down; all will be drawn in from the first sentence. This may be Martha Grimes’ finest Richard Jury mystery to date."

The murdered couple is Rebecca and David Moffit, Americans who wrote a letter to Zane asking permission to gamble at the Artemis and received a “yes” answer. David was a confident gambler and was quite wealthy. Rebecca was a beautiful woman gunned down in the prime of her life. Their killer makes a clean escape back to Nairobi, Kenya, his home. Why the Moffits were killed is a mystery in and of itself. This makes THE KNOWLEDGE that much more of a thriller, with a twisted murder at its center.

Patty Haigh is one of the kids in the street gang, and is a practiced pickpocket and con artist. She is confident and has no qualms about her role in life. She steals a boarding pass at the airport where the killer is about to board his plane back to Africa and follows him as he escapes after the murder.

Melrose Plant is also in Nairobi at the behest of Jury. He meets up with Patty, and both together and apart they investigate things that are in Zane’s gallery and try to find the Moffits’ killer. Leo, as he wants to be called, has original oil paintings by a Kenyan artist and has the exclusive rights to sell them in London to anyone who wants them. He also has blue stones known as tanzanite in a very beautiful exhibit. They are in demand because the only place they can be mined is in Tanzania. Zane owns a mine there, hence his collection, which is for sale as jewelry pieces and loose stones.

This whole African element adds an air of adventure to the already interesting plot. The characters are well drawn and believable. Readers will find it hard to put the book down; all will be drawn in from the first sentence. This may be Martha Grimes’ finest Richard Jury mystery to date.