The latest book in the Martha Grimes series (well, for me, anyway, as I slowly read them in order). I truly love Richard Jury and Melrose Plant and all the other assorted characters, but, as in most series, there are up books and down books. This wasn't a bad little story, but it didn't hold up to the level of some of her truly phenomenal mysteries.

Two young women are murdered, ten months and different cities separating their deaths. No connection might have been made except for the method of murder: strangled by their own scarves. Jury is drawn together again with Macalvie, divisional commander in Devon, who first appeared in the last book in the series and looks to be a new recurring character. His fiery temperament and bullying interrogation methods are a sharp contrast to the calm and charming Jury. Of course, they have become hostile friends by now, and their dynamic is fun to watch in this novel. Melrose Plant must also have a say in the matter, as he is friends with friends of the accused murderer (it's a small world for those rich nobles).

The only clue they have is from the second woman, Ivy Childess, who met her boyfriend, David Marr, in the pub where she was murdered hours later. Through Marr they are drawn into the Winslow family and start to uncover various skeletons hidden in the closet as they scramble to find the truth. As with any fun British manor mystery of the Agatha Christie sort (a kind I particularly enjoy), the surface is deceptive, and the relationships are more twisted than the family would like to present. A couple of smaller subplot mysteries must be unraveled before the truth is revealed.

Grimes writes such delightful characters. Jury, and his hypochondriac sergeant Wiggins, are fantastic. Plant is a great comic relief character and Macalvie's gruff demeanor is a new change of pace. I even love the minor characters that often crop up in only one or two chapters, the other tenants in Jury's apartment, Mrs. Wasserman and Carol-Anne. Their stories are slowly evolving over the course of every novel, and I was delighted to see Mrs. Wasserman starting to relax her fear and paranoia. Good work, Carol-Anne!

Why was this just a mediocre read, then, when all the characters continue to be wondrous? The mystery was much thinner this time around. Usually we delve a lot deeper into the backgrounds of the main suspects, whereas this time it felt like we just scratched the surface. Also, Plant was really a useless character as far as the mystery was concerned (although his hazardous stay at the local pub was laugh-out-loud funny). I even predicted the outcome of the subplot mysteries; speaking of which, there was really only one to speak of, and usually Grimes weaves in a few more. She didn't even bother with the astrology connection which could have been an excellent red herring.

Not to say that this novel was bad - I did give it three starts for a good read - it was a fast read and I was curious about the outcome. It just wasn't as good as Grimes can be. More like a small slice of Jury goodness. Actually, I expected it might be less than her meatier books when I first started, because the font was so much smaller. Just to vent a moment: I don't really care about font sizes, but when every book in the series uses the same font, and then all of a sudden the next book's font size is noticeably larger than the rest, but the thickness of the book is the same, and you know that they changed the font just so that they could have the same number of pages even though it should be a shorter book! ... well, that annoys me. ( )

Eighth in the Richard Jury series.

A young woman is strangled on a lonely highway pulloff--on Brian Macalvie's turf. 10 months later, another young woman is strangled the same way outside a Mayfair pub of the title, bringing in Richard Jury. suspicion falls on the latter woman's lover, David Marr, a member of a very wealthy and very close knit family. Melrose Plant becomes involved when another young woman, in love with Marr, pleads with Melrose to visit Marr and his family--neighbors--to see for himself that David could not be the killer. Encouraged as always by Jury to be a mole, Plant travels to Somers Abbas and stays at The Mortal Man, a local inn.

Which allows Grimes to invent yet another of her wildly eccentric families, the Warboys, owners and operators of the inn. More "normal" than the Cripps family of London's Catchcoach St, that still leaves enormous leeway for bizarre behavior and relationships within the Warboys family, resulting in an excruciatingly funny chapter in the book.

In addition, Grimes introduces a number of other characters who will recur in the series, and a new job for Carole-anne Palutski as a fortune-teller in an occult shop in Covent Garden--a location that will recur as well.

That said, there isn't much more to recommend the book. Grimes gives a fairly good look at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton as local color backdrop for the climax of the book. The plot is pretty pedestrian and not very interesting. Normally, at least one child plays a crucial role in the series; in the 6th and 7th books of the series, the plot actually revolves around a young person. In this book, as in the first book, Man With a Load of Mischief, 2 young children have critical information for Jury and Macalvie, but in cameo roles.

Grimesism: "Wiggens, thought Jury, would have taken shock treatments to ward off the flu."

While Grimes' wit and inventiveness with characters enlivens this book, it can't cover the plodding story. ( )