The Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes

I’ve been behind in my reading. There are many excuses: grading papers for 28 students for the end of term, watching playoff hockey, and more things to do at my full-time job. However, I am in catch-up mode now, and just finished reading The Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes.

The Jerusalem Inn is the fifth in the Richard Jury/Melrose Plant series, and it was more of the same as the earlier books. Jury meets Helen Minton at the beginning of the book, and after a brief tea, he makes dinner plans with her. Since it’s only a few days till Christmas, they both see this opportunity as a way to have some holiday cheer. Unfortunately, when Jury goes to meet her, he finds the local police in residence. Helen is dead, assumed to be dead due to natural causes. Jury is suspicious, and rightfully so, when it turns out the Helen was poisoned. As Jury tries to find out why someone would want to kill Helen, he learns more about her life with her cousin, and that Helen may have had a child with her cousin. Tracking down the cousin, artist, Edward Parmenger, Jury travels to a snowbound mansion where Plant, his annoying in-law, Agatha, and Vivian Rivington are gathered to celebrate Christmas with the Seainghams, Parmenger, and other assorted characters. As Jury arrives, one of the guests turns up murdered.

Although it took a while for me to read the book, it wasn’t because the book was bad or boring. The story was pretty much the same as the others in the series. I think that I am getting a bit tired of the fact that Jury seems to be relegated to a lonely life without love. Yeah, I get it that he is incredibly handsome. Why can’t he find love in his life? It’s the same with Melrose Plant. There are precocious children in this one, as with the others. This time, it’s little Chrissie in Jerusalem Inn. She says something that makes Jury realize the answer to the mystery. Then there’s Tommy, the young Marquis. He’s 16 and a champion snooker play. Now you might think from some of the comments that I didn’t like the book, but I did like it. And I was not able to guess the murderer. I guess that I should have, but it was a surprise to me. I’ll read more of the series. I just hope that Jury and Plant find some love and happiness in life.

The Dirty Duck by Martha Grimes

The Dirty Duck is Martha Grimes' fourth entry in the Richard Jury series. I've been trying to read the series in order, and as I finish up a pair, I order replacements from the library. I'm very lucky to have such a good library system, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. In The Dirty Duck, Richard Jury is on vacation in Stratford-upon-Avon. Jury is hoping that he can meet Lady Jenny Kennington, whom he met in The Anodyne Necklace. Lady Kennington moved to Stratford-upon-Avon at the end of the last book. Melrose Plant is there too, with his Aunt Agatha and her American relations. There are also some other American tourists in Stratford-upon-Avon, touring with the Honeycut Tours. Of course, where Jury and Plant are, murder follows. First, Gwendolyn Bracegirdle gets herself slashed and stashed in a public toilet. She's found with a few lines of poetry written on a Shakespeare playbill. But it doesn't stop there. Little Jimmy Carlton goes missing. Then his step-sister is murdered, and as the tour moves to London, his step-mother is murdered in the same grizzly fashion. Both also have additional lines from the same stanza of poetry that's found on Ms. Bracegirdle. Is there a psycho killing folks, or is there a connection to the Honeycut Tours? Where's little Jimmy? Can Jury and Plant find the killer before anyone else is murdered?

So far, as I've been reading through the series, I find myself like the latest book better than the ones that preceded it. The Dirty Duck is the best of the four so far. Granted, the murders are fairly horrifying. The victims have their throats slit, and then are slit open to the waist. Of course, Grimes doesn't go into gross detail, but it's enough to set up some mental pictures. Again, we have the strong child character. This time, it's Jimmy, who finds himself kidnapped and not knowing what is going on. Of course, I don't want to give away the ending, but Jimmy shows a great deal of resourcefulness for a nine-year old. The only negative comment I have to make is that Jury and Plant have the worst luck of any characters I know in mystery literature. Lady Kennington, Jenny, leaves Stratford-upon-Avon before Jury can start a relationship with her, and Vivian Rivington, Plant's Ardry End neighbor, comes back from an extended stay in Italy with an Italian fiancé. Of course, she just happens to show up in Stratford-upon-Avon. Jury and Plant are in their 40s, attractive, and unable to get women? Really? Of course, they get the ones they don't want. Jury likes Vivian who likes Plant. What a tangled web! I am enjoying the Jury/Plant series, and if you like mysteries, you should definitely give them a try. I think they should be read in order because the characters and relationships appear to develop over the books.

The Anodyne Necklace

Everyone needs a break, and I’m mixing in some mysteries with the romantic suspense. One author that I haven’t read before is Martha Grimes. Grimes is an American who writes British mysteries, and if there’s one thing I like, it’s the classic British mystery. So I’ve been working my way through her Inspector Jury/Melrose Plant series. Inspector Jury is from Scotland Yard, and finds himself getting called in to investigate various murders around the country. Melrose Plant is a Lord who gave up his title because he wasn’t interested in the whole aristocracy/House of Lords bit. In the first book in the series,The Man with a Load of Mischief a murder happens near Plant’s family home, and Jury is called in to investigate. The pair become buddies, and as Jury goes to investigate other murders, Plant motors out to help his pal. I just finished reading the third book in the series, The Anodyne Necklace. In this book, Jury is called out to investigate the murder of young woman in the Horndean Woods in the little village of Littlebourne. The woman is a stranger to the village and was found with the fingers of one hand chopped off. Jury has to figure out who the woman is and if the murder ties in with the other disparate things that seem to be going on: a young girl from the village who had her head bashed in while busking in the Underground in London, a jewelry robbery from one of the local landed gentry, and the accidental death of the person suspected of committing the robbery. Of course, Jury ties up all the loose ends and finds the murderer.

The book was a good deal of fun. I read through it very quickly, but I did have some problems with it. In The Anodyne Necklace, as well as with the second book in the series, The Old Fox Deceiv’d, an independent child has a key role in the mystery and the solution. The child in question this time is a girl, Emily Louise Perk. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know that many 10-year-old kids who are as enterprising and self-reliant as the kids in Grimes’ books. Emily Louise’s mother is nowhere to be found. The girl totally controls the whole village with her strong personality. No one from child services shows up to wonder what the girl is doing working or wandering the town late at night. The situations and characters are starting to feel very formulaic. I would hope that Grimes finds some way to change things up. The mystery is a good one. At first, I couldn’t think of any way Jury could tie all the crimes together, but he did. This book had a decidedly dark element with the attack on young Katie O’Brien, who was left in a life threatening coma, and a threat to Emily Louise. The characters in the village are interesting, especially Polly Praed, a mystery writer who plots the murders of the annoying Bodenheim family, the leading family of Littlebourne. I did sort of suspect whodunit, but started to doubt myself as the story continued. I’ve just started the next book in the series,The Dirty Duck, so the formulaic bits of Grimes’ style aren’t annoying me yet!

The Old Fox Deceiv'd by Martha Grimes

I just finished reading The Old Fox Deceiv'd by Martha Grimes. The book is the second in the Richard Jury serie

s, and as with the other books in the series, the title comes from the name of a pub that slightly features in the book. In fact, in this book, the action is very slight indeed. CID Inspector, Richard Jury is called up to a small town in the North of England to investigate the murder of Gemma Temple, murdered in costume on Twelfth Night. The question, though, was if Gemma Temple was in fact Dillys March, long-lost ward of Sir Titus Crael, wealthy, local landowner. Melrose Plant, wealthy former Lord Ardry,   is visiting the Craels and gets to join in the detection fun as he did in the first book. It would seem to me that as the series progresses, it will become more difficult to get Plant involved in Jury's investigations, but that's how fictional mysteries are.

The mystery in this book was a good one, and I enjoyed figuring out whodunit (and no, I didn't guess it this time). My favorite character was a young boy, Bertie Makepeace who has been left to fend for himself by a mother who is more interested in herself. Fortunately, Bertie has a level head on his shoulders, and a super-intelligent dog named Arnold. Jury and Plant travel to London to gather information on Gemma Temple, and in the search, find out something about Sir Titus' family, deceased Lady Margaret and the deceased elder son Rolfe, and younger son, Julian. The Crael family has many hidden skeletons in the closet, and all comes out under Jury's investigation. We learn that Julian's adamant hatred of Dillys would be more aptly described as great love.

The book was an entertaining read. I like the interactions between Plant and Jury. The human side of both come out in the case of Bertie Makepeace. The mystery was a good one. I do wonder if I just happened to miss the piece that lead to the solution. I think that I might have read it, but not picked up on it. There were suggestions throughout the book, but because I missed the initial puzzle piece, the suggestions did nothing for me. Overall, the book is a good read, and I have plans to read more in the series.