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Maud Chadwick sits at the end of the pier, watching the party across the water. Sometimes she is joined by Sheriff Sam DeGheyn, who finds her quiet company a refuge from the problems of his own marriage and from his increasing professional concerns. For the town's sleepy atmosphere is deceptive: three local women have been murderedand Sam suspects the wrong man has been convicted and that the real killer is readying himself to strike again.Tags
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Hard to get my head around this book having been written BEFORE the Emma Graham books as the world that is pictured contains Emma's world so seamlessly. The characters and the place feel so real they could be real, but that's probably just the artistry of the author. Obviously they are based in her childhood world but she has spun a web with cunning and passion.
For fans of Grimes' Emma Graham series, this book is novel in that it gives a little bit of an adult perspective on the town and townspeople 12-year-old Emma describes. It's not a particularly strong mystery, but more of a blending with a dramatic, character-based story. It is dramatic and well written, but only one of the several plot threads is resolved. I imagine Grimes meant to revisit these characters, but moved on to Emma as a way to do that.
Hard to get my head around this book having been written BEFORE the Emma Graham books as the world that is pictured contains Emma's world so seamlessly. The characters and the place feel so real they could be real, but that's probably just the artistry of the author. Obviously they are based in her childhood world but she has spun a web with cunning and passion.
What a disappointment after the "Lamora Wink." That book was magic. This one was lead. The heroine is a melodramatic game-player who mistakes nostalgia for romanticisim. After a hint of a plot, the book seques to a completely different story (which would be better if you weren't trying to figure out how it connects wth the fist part of the book), then, almost as an afterthought, suddenly reverts to a quick, neat, quiet tie-up of the original plot.
Sort of boring, at times it be difficult to understand why the author is taking the story it does. It's more a story of parents and children than a mystery. She writes quite well but I was glad to end this one.
Not a Richard Jury novel. Set in a small American resort town by a lake. Maud Chadwick waits tables at the Rainbow Cafe, and watches her 20 year old son step out on his own. Her friend Sam DeGheyn, the town sheriff, is obsessed with the unsolved murders of three local women. Bittersweet, atmospheric, not funny like the classic Jury series. Okay, but I like Jury better.
It's supposed to be a psychological thriller. I guess it was ok, not much of a who dunnit. It was more about characters in a small town. I enjoyed it sometimes. I think if you like Gabriel Garcia then you might like this book.
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59+ Works 29,717 Members
Martha Grimes was born on May 2, 1931 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Maryland. The idea for Martha Grimes' first British detective novel, The Man with a Load of Mischief (1981), was inspired by the name of a British pub she noticed while leafing through a travel book. A longtime Anglophile, she show more has continued to use a British pub as both the title and part of the setting in each subsequent novel in the series which features Scotland Yard Detective Richard Jury, his assistant, Melrose Plant, and Plant's interfering Aunt Agatha. The Anodyne Necklace (1983) won her the Nero Wolfe Award. Her other works include The Stargazey, The Case Has Been Altered, The End of the Pier, Biting the Moon, and Dust. Her title, Vertigo 42, made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2014. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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rororo (13735)
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Common Knowledge
- Original title
- The End of the Pier
- Original publication date
- 1992
- People/Characters
- Sheriff Sam DeGheyn; Maud Chadwick
- Important places
- USA
- Epigraph
- Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the... (show all) air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.
Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.
--Wallace Stevens, "The Idea of Order at Key West" - Dedication
- To Kent, Bill, and James W., who would tell me if they knew
- First words
- The Rainbow Cafe treated any day before a holiday like big money.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)He caught up with her on the path, and as they walked away from the end of the pier, he thought she must have said (but he couldn't be sure because of the music drifting over the water), said or sighted, "Dear boy."
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- Reviews
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- Rating
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 22
- ASINs
- 10
