Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap (USA 2013)

From the Publisher:
In her latest Richard Jury adventure, Martha Grimes takes us to Ashdown Dean, a little English village where animals are dying in a series of seemingly innocuous accidents. While the puzzling deaths of village pets may raise some idle gossip over a pint or two at the Deer Leap, the village pub, this hardly seems a case for Superintendent Jury of Scotland yard. Nor does it seem much of a challenge for the combined deductive powers of Jury and Melrose, the affable former Earl of Caverness.

It is his mystery-writing, amethyst-eyed friend, Polly Praed, who drags Plant and Jury to Ashdown Dean. The impatient Polly, having yanked open a call box in the pouring rain, is ill-prepared for what lands at her feet. The now-deadly case is cause for calling in Scotland Yard.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap. A Richard Jury Mystery. Scribner eBook, ISBN: 9781476732893 (April, 2013), 2147 KB (ca. 324 p.), $11.99.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
In a village plagued by missing pets, Scotland Yard's Richard Jury and sidekick Melrose Plant face the worst of human nature...
Polly Praed's visit to Ashdown Dean lands her in the local police station -- being questioned about a corpse that fell out of a phone booth at her feet. Now Polly's calling for help from Melrose Plant and Richard Jury, because, like many of the pets in Ashdown Dean, her cat is missing. For Plant and Jury, it doesn't take a leap in logic to suspect the sinister laboratory at the edge of town. But it does take a local pub called the Deer Leap to lead them to a chilling old crime -- and a brand-new way to die...

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap. A Richard Jury Novel. Onyx Books, ISBN: 0451411870 (June, 2005), 299 p., $7.99.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap (UK 1991)

From the Publisher:
First it was Una Quick's dog, next the Potter sisters' beloved cat. Anyone would have thought that the animal population of Ashdown Dean was killing itself off. Or being killed. Superintendent Jury discovers that the Hampshire village has many murky secrets beneath its sleepy surface.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap. Headline, ISBN: 0747230323 (September, 1991), 236 p., £2.99.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
"CHARM AND ENERGY... A BRILLIANTLY INTERWOVEN MULTIPLE NARRATIVE." Newsweek
All roads don't lead to the vill of Ashdown Dean. The one did led mystery writer Polly Pred tight to the police station... to be questioned about a corpse. Poor Polly admitted to opening the phone booth door, but the dead woman had fallen out quite on her own. Now Polly needed to phone again -- to call Melrose Plant and Scotland Yard's Richard Jury for help. For something was rotten in Ashdown Dean. Pets were missing. Some had been found dead.

Three roads led away from the village. One led Plant and Jury to a sinister laboratory on the edge of town, another to La Notre, the rundown mansion, where an aging dowager lived with her mysterious teenage ward. But the third took them to the Deer Leap pub, where they discovered a chilling old crime and a brand-new way to die.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap. Dell, ISBN: 0440119383 (September, 1990), 236 p., $4.95.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap (USA 1988)

From the Publisher:
"ONE OF THE ESTABLISHED MASTERS OF THE GENRE." Newsweek
All roads don't lead to the vill of Ashdown Dean. The one did led mystery writer Polly Pred tight to the police station... to be questioned about a corpse. Poor Polly admitted to opening the phone booth door, but the dead woman had fallen out quite on her own. Now Polly needed to phone again -- to call Melrose Plant and Scotland Yard's Richard Jury for help. For something was rotten in Ashdown Dean. Pets were missing. Some had been found dead.

Three roads led away from the village. One led Plant and Jury to a sinister laboratory on the edge of town, another to La Notre, the rundown mansion, where an aging dowager lived with her mysterious teenage ward. But the third took them to the Deer Leap pub, where they discovered a chilling old crime and a brand-new way to die.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap. Dell, ISBN: 0440119383 (September, 1988), 236 p., $4.50.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap (USA 1986)

From the Publisher:
"ONE OF THE ESTABLISHED MASTERS OF THE GENRE." Newsweek
All roads don't lead to the vill of Ashdown Dean. The one did led mystery writer Polly Pred tight to the police station... to be questioned about a corpse. Poor Polly admitted to opening the phone booth door, but the dead woman had fallen out quite on her own. Now Polly needed to phone again -- to call Melrose Plant and Scotland Yard's Richard Jury for help. For something was rotten in Ashdown Dean. Pets were missing. Some had been found dead.

Three roads led away from the village. One led Plant and Jury to a sinister laboratory on the edge of town, another to La Notre, the rundown mansion, where an aging dowager lived with her mysterious teenage ward. But the third took them to the Deer Leap pub, where they discovered a chilling old crime and a brand-new way to die.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap. Dell, ISBN: 0440119383 (November, 1986), 236 p., $3.50.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap (USA 1985)

From the Publisher:
In her latest Richard Jury adventure, Martha Grimes takes us to Ashdown Dean, a little English village where animals are dying in a series of seemingly innocuous accidents. While the puzzling deaths of village pets may raise some idle gossip over a pint or two at the Deer Leap, the village pub, this hardly seems a case for Superintendent Jury of Scotland Yard. Nor does it seem much of a challenge for the combined deductive powers of Jury and Melrose Plant, the affable former Earl of Caverness.

It is his mystery-writing, amethyst-eyed friend, Polly Praed, who drags Plant and Jury to Ashdown Dean. The impatient Polly, having yanked open a call box in the pouring rain, is ill prepared for what lands at her feet. The now-deadly case is cause for calling in Scotland Yard.

But Ashdown Dean presents a puzzle. Just outside the village lurks the solitary and sinister Rumford Laboratory. What role does it play in the deaths of pets and people? And what secrets lie buried in the cloudy past of Regina de la Notre, the aging dowager and village matriarch? And just who is Regina's fifteen-year-old irrepressible ward, who uses the gardens of the ramshackle mansion called La Notre to tend lame and helpless strays?

The answers are hidden beneath Ashdown Dean's sleepy veneer. And Jury's efforts lead him to an ending more chilling than the most world- weary of detectives could imagine.

Martha Grimes: The Deer Leap. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1985, ISBN: 0316328863, 236 p., $14.95.