The Old Silent by Martha Grimes is one of her Inspector Richard Jury mystery series. As they all are, it’s an atypical mystery, more interested in then journey than the resolution. It is elegantly odd, each character retreating into their own preoccupation. It is rather like watching shadows. Only Macalvie is definite, but then, his retreat is his police work. For the rest, even the children, readers remain bemused outsiders, exiled from the characters’ inner lives, aware those lives are strong.

Does all this sound daunting? It’s not. The novel is more than elegantly odd. It is elusively seductive.