The Grave Maurice

Jury is recovering in hospital (as the Brits say) from the hellish end of his last case, and everyone thinks he needs something to occupy his mind. Wiggins brings him Tey's 'Daughter of Time'; Melrose brings him an abduction. When the abduction turns into murder, and Jury is up on hs feet, he decides to investigate. This time the characters include horses and teenagers, and much too much death. Lots of red herrings kept me guessing about everyone except the main villain, whom I spotted even before I knew the true extent of the crime. And the motive was both right out in the open and a complete surprise.

This is another Richard Jury novel whose title comes from the name of an English pub (as do all the Richard Jury titles). Jury is recuperating from gunshot wounds but his friend, Melrose Plant, knows just the thing to get him well, a mystery. Jury's surgeon had a daughter abducted 2 years previously and never heard from her again. I thought the solution was contrived and not very believable. Usually, the eccentric characters in this series make a book worth reading but even they seemed stretched thin.

Richard Jury is laid up in hospital, recovering from some serious wounds. Melrose Plant and Sargeant Wiggins have been frequent visitors. In an effort to give Jury something to occupy his mind, Wiggins gives him a copy of “The Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey. Wiggins had been given the book by Plant when Wiggins was in hospital. The main character of the book is in a situation similar to Jury’s. The second plot to the book is the mystery concerning Richard the Third and the princes who were kept in the tower and mysteriously disappeared. Wiggins gesture is well meant, but Jury is not a mystery reader.

To distract Jury, Plant tells him of a conversation he overheard at the Grave Maurice, across the street from the hospital.

Plant show more sits to the bar and overhears two women talking. They were discussing about someone named Ryder and that he was a “poor sod” as his daughter had disappeared about two years ago. Then a comment was made about a brother and he’d been killed. Only bits and pieces, but it interests Plant. And it turns out Jury’s doctor is the “poor sod” and asks if Jury would look into the matter “unofficially.”

Jury is released from hospital with instructions to rest, but he immediately starts investigating. The case is stone cold, but little by little Jury gets bits and pieces, tying them together.

It turns out the girl’s disappearance isn’t the only mystery. There is the death of the doctor’s brother during a race in Paris and the mysterious goings on at a nearby stud farm. Somehow they seem related.

This is not a book to race through. The clues are not always obvious and neither are the connections. show less

Of all the living mystery writers, Martha Grimes has the most style. A lovely writing said the Chicago Tribune, and it is true. Her usual heroes, the unhappy detective Jury and his aristocratic friend Melrose are as fascinating as was Peter Wimsey in the old books of Dorothy Sawyers. Slightly but pleasantly old-fashioned. And this is the best of the 17 Jury novels she had published this far. I read them all. People who write a lot of thrillers, like Connelly, Sandford or Kellerman, tend to become gloomy with time. It is part of the job, and Grimes does not escape it. So, this is an excellent book that I recommend, but I will never read another one. I suddenly understood that Grimes was going to kill the only nice people she describes. show more No more gloom for me, give me young writer! show less

this one was most entertaining. Jury doesn't appear for long stretches till near the end, but we learn quite a lot about the character and modus operandi of Melrose Plant, which is rather endearing, and his motley assortment of hangers-on are well deployed. definitely the funniest of the series; i often laughed out loud. the plot is long and complex, but all the characters are finely drawn.

18th in the series and the first book that just felt too long at times to read. Plus the tragic ending was just one too many tragedies for me in my murder mysteries. After being shot at the end of the previous novel, Richard Jury finds himself in the hospital being ministered to by Dr. Roger Ryder whose daughter, Nell disappeared 2 years before. To keep himself busy while recuperating, Richard decides to look into the case with the able help of Melrose Plant who ends up buying himself a racehorse.

Entertaining, just not quite as compelling as her previous novels were to me.

Not sure about this one. I liked parts of it, but all in all I couldn't really get into it- the characters were all a bit flat, and the plucky-young-child/ teenage-person (beautiful of course, no acne breakouts or gawkiness here)-with-tragic-past/ future- thing is beginning to get a little tiresome. It would be nice to come accross a sympathetic teenage character who acts like one, is not wise beyond their years, and whose story is still worth telling.

Oh well, I guess that is bitterness speaking- the feelings of someone who was a wholly unremarkable, cliched teenager...