Martha Grimes builds interesting characters and the setting glistens, but many times too many red herrings creep into the narrative. Blonde women of a certain appearance have been strangled and many police division stumble along attempting to find the killer. Enter the stage with Richard Jury and his cast of detectives. Before the killer can strangle Dolly, Jury and his crew of amateur detectives discover the killer’s identity. The reader learns about many English pubs and food and spirits and the minor personality traits of the characters: Fiona, the secretary of Chief Superintendent Racer, the devilish cat Cyril, the hypochondriac Sergeant Alfred Wiggins, and many others. What baffled me dealt with a character named Ned and also called Edward. Why this difference? The detail provides a better picture, but at times teeters at too much description. ( )

law-enforcement, murder-investigation, british, friendship, humor

Extremely convoluted and yet fractured. All of the Jury/Wiggins/Plant books are more than a bit odd, but we read and reread them anyway. Me, I like to follow the freeing of Mrs Wasserman and the antics of Carol Ann of the outrageous lies.
Steve West magnifies the drollery with his sardonic narration. ( )

The continuing adventures of Superintendent Richard Jury of New Scotland Yard and Melrose Plant, former Earl of Caverness. When a hitchhiker, Sheila Broome is found strangled by her own scarf and 10 months later another woman, Ivy Childress is found dead in the same manner, Richard teams up with local divisional commander Brian Macalvie to solve the crimes. David Marr, related to the Winslow family is the prime suspect without much of an alibi. Richard, Macalvie, Wiggins and Plant need to find the murderer before another crime is committed. ( )

Ugh. Another American author who thinks peppering her books with the aristocracy makes them British. I found six mistakes within the first three chapters - we don't have medical examiners in England, we have pathologists. Any good editor should have picked up on this. Glad I only paid 50p for this! ( )

Typical Grimes mystery. If you like her works, you will find this one different and fun. I didn't guess "who done it" until the last couple of chapters. ( )