~11 rights<br >f this book<br >ut written<br >a critical<br >， ss， 175 Fifth<br >ONE<br >Murders are messy. Some， of course， are more messy than<br >others; smother the victim with a pillow， strangle him with<br >piano wire， use arsenic instead of castor sugar on his sponge<br >cake and unless， as sometimes happens， the bowels and the<br >bladder empty themselves when he gives up the ghost， you<br >have a non-messy murder. Comparatively non-messy. But<br >blast off at him with a shotgun， slice his windpipe with a<br >sharp knife or bash his skRll in with a blunt instrument and<br >you have mess all over the place. Gallons of it. If the killing<br >takes place in a room the carpets and furnishings are<br >saturated in gore. Great streaks and gobs of the stuff<br >pattern the walls. It even splashes the ceiling. And not only<br >blood. Brain tissue， slivers of shattered bone， multi-<br >coloured mucus and membrane. All the general goo that<br >biology masters talk about， but rarely put on show. This<br >time it s all on show!<br > And when Clive Richardson got his， it was a very messy<br >murder.<br > Seven days ago， when his daily cleaning woman had<br >opened the bedroom door to deliver his morning cup of<br >pre-breakfast coffee， she d seen the mess and promptly<br >fainted. Then she d come round long enough to call the<br >police before fainting again.<br > Since then it had been all go. Door-to-door questioning，<br >long sessions with his friends and acquaintances， forensic<br >science jiggery-pokery， post mortem prodding and probing，<br ><br >