Jerusalem Inn

A meeting in a graveyard. That was how it would always come back to him, and without any sense of irony at all - that a meeting in a graveyard did not foreshadow the permanence he was after. Snow mounding the sundial. Sparrows quarreling in the hedges. The black cat sitting enthroned in the dry birdbath. Slivers of memories. A broken mirror. Bad luck, Jury.

Christmas time and Superintendent Richard Jury finds himself in Newcastle; a cold, white, snowy, dreary place.

Jury meets Helen Minton in the local cemetery. She is doing some research on one of the local families. Jury finds himself attracted in her. Unfortunately, the next time he sees her, she is dead.

Melrose Plant is also in the area, staying at the home of an acquaintance, along with a houseful of critics, artists and the idle rich. And yes, Aunt Agatha has also managed an invite. When one of the guests is discovered dead in the snow, it begins to look like murder has arrived.

Jury believes there is a connection between the two deaths, but can’t seem to find the thread. His visits to the nearby pub, Jerusalem Inn, hold some secrets show more that are tied to the murders and possibly some older ones.

Little by little, Jury untangles the threads with the help of is unofficial assistant, Melrose Plant and Plant’s knowledge of the aristocratic world. Among those tangled threads are some secrets that are better left hidden. show less

I've read a few Martha Grimes books and have enjoyed all of them. Jerusalem Inn is a whodunit without blood and gore. I honestly did not work out the perpetrator early in the book. It takes a while to realise there is a connection between the dead women and even longer to work out what that connection is. It is a relaxing read with amusing, likeable characters. I will read more of Superintendent Jury.

I suppose that part of my problem with this book could be that I had not read the first four books in the series. Perhaps had I done so, I would have some feeling for the characters. Perhaps their characters were developed in the earlier books and the somewhat anemic presentation in this book was presuming on that. But I never got the feeling that I actually could care about Richard Jury, and the chapter in which Melrose Plant first appeared was over-the-top boring -- partly because I failed to grasp that Mr Plant was an important character, and because the people who appeared in the chapter with him seemed to have no particular raison d'être at that point. (They never developed any in their own right, but some of them eventually did show more further the plot.)

So the book goes along and along, and the murders are solved after a fashion, and then comes the final chapter, which is devoted to a series of snooker games. Several of which are recounted blow by blow (shot by shot?). Tediously, screamingly boring if your entire knowledge of the game is "uses pool table and cues; balls supposed to go into pockets; but maybe not all the balls; might be synonymous with pool and/or billiards, or not". I closed the book with a feeling of relief.

Also, the publishers might do well not to devote the dust jacket to multiple comparisons of the author with Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie (e.g. "she surpasses them" "better than either" etc.), because the expectations thus aroused will not be met and the disappointed reader might become surly.

In all fairness, there were several extremely clever turns of phrase in the book which tempted me to repeat them to innocent bystanders. show less

One thing I really enjoy in life is to find a series of 20 books that I love, and to read them all in a row. This might have been one of those series were it not for the growing list of characters who are entirely defined by one quirk, like Wiggins and his illnesses and cough drops, Mrs Wasserman and her imaginary menacing men, Aunt Agatha and her silly greediness (especially when it comes to fairy cakes, which may never have been seen directly in this installment but which have been mentioned relentlessly through the previous four).

Also, this one was convoluted in a way that had me thinking, wait, which school? Whose child? Et cetera.

May come back to it later, pausing indefinitely for now.

Too many loose ends. I liked having Melrose trapped in a manor house with Aunt Agatha and a murderer. And the usual suspects. The Big Secret was known by way too many people. It helps if you know something about Snooker.

murder-investigation, friendship, family-dynamics, law-enforcement

Verrry interesting, but strange, verrry strange. The coincidences pile up and so do the bodies. It's one of those books where you keep asking yourself: What are the odds? Well, the characters certainly are, as well as the venue. Many things are more than a little far fetched, but then again it is fiction.
Steve West does a fine job of tongue in cheek narration.