In 'Foul Matter,' Martha Grimes has taken a break from her Richard Jury mysteries to write this hilarious send-up of the book industry, here populated by such companies as Grunge and DrekSneed. Another publishing house, Mackensie-Haack, is about to add a top suspense novelist, Paul Giverney, to its prestigious list of writers, but Giverney has one additional requirement. He wants Mackensie-Haack to drop Ned Isaly, an author of award winning novels, which have helped the company earn its reputation for publishing quality fiction. Instead of merely trying to find some excuse to break Isaly's contract, the company's egotistical head, Bobbie Mackensie, decides to hire hit men to eliminate Isaly permanently. However, Mackensie makes the mistake of hiring Karl and Candy, two gruffly appealing contract killers, whose modus operandi includes getting to know the proposed victim to see if he deserves to die. Complications arise and sub-plots emerge in this entertainingly twisting tale.

An ongoing riff in the novel concerns Nathalie, a character in Ned Isaly's latest manuscript. We see Isaly thinking and writing about Nathalie, who seems permanently stuck in a Paris garden, where she waits forlornly for her lover, Patric. Finally, she rebels and starts to complain to Isaly about the situation he has constructed for her. The resulting argument between Nathalie and her literary creator is one of the funniest and best written sections of the novel.

In addition to those already mentioned, 'Foul Matter' includes a handful of deftly drawn characters such as writers who publish too much, writers who publish hardly at all, various toilers in the publishing trade, a mafia figure in the witness protection program who loves to see his words in print, and an editor, Clive Esterhaus, a wily survivor who gave up editing years ago. All these people, including the hit men, seem expert about the ins and outs of the New York Times Best Seller List and how the placement of a book in chain bookstores affects its sales.

Grimes also gives us some colorful locales, such as Swills, a run down writers' bar; the Old Hotel; a restaurant with a set of Byzantine rules about who gets in and who doesn't; and an upstate writers' colony where people go not to write.

Though mainly set in New York, there is a screwball excursion that lands most of the characters for a time in Pittsburg.

Possibly to defy the rules of the mystery genre, Grimes leaves a number of loose ends and unanswered questions at the end of the story. This terrific book should cure all except the most air headed of any idealistic visions of the book publishing business.