The Blue Last (original 2001; edition 2002)

by Martha Grimes

Series: Richard Jury (17)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
961	5	21,795	(3.57)	18
Fiction. Mystery. HTML:In The Blue Last, Richard Jury finally faces the last thing in the world he wants to deal with�??the war that killed his mother, his father, his childhood. Mickey Haggerty, a DCI with the London City police, has asked for Jury's help. Two skeletons have been unearthed in the City during the excavation of London's last bombsite, where once a pub stood called the The Blue Last. Mickey believes that a child who survived the bombing has been posing for over fifty years as a child who didn't. The grandchild of brewery magnet Oliver Tyndale supposedly survived that December 1940 bombing . . . but did she? Mickey also has a murder to solve. Simon Croft, prosperous City financial broker, and son of the one-time owner of The Blue Last is found shot to death in his Thames-side house. But the book he was writing about London during the German blitzkrieg has disappeared. Jury wants to get eyes and ears into Tynedale Lodge, and looks to his friend, Melrose Plant, to play the role. Reluctantly, Plant plays it, accompanied on his rounds of the Lodge gardens by nine-year-old Gemma Trim, orphan and ward of Oliver Tynedale; and Benny Keagan, a resourceful twelve-year-old orphaned delivery boy. And Richard Jury may not make it out alive. A stolen book, stolen lives, or is any of this what it seems? Identity, memory, provenance - these are all called into question in The Blue Last… (more)

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Member:	mvmayfield
Title:	The Blue Last
Authors:	Martha Grimes
Info:	Onyx (2002), Mass Market Paperback, 464 pages
Collections:	Your library
Rating:
Tags:	mystery

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The Blue Last by Martha Grimes (2001)

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Showing 5 of 5

Jury investigates 50 yr old child swap and recent murder, is shot at end

ritaer | Jun 27, 2021 |

law-enforcement, murder, investigation, family-dynamics-----
The only trouble with reading this series out of order is that you wind up hunting for the one where a particular character is introduced, and for me that person is Benny Keagan. Benny is the best kind of street kid, one who is a truly good and resourceful person who knows how to help others. The publisher's blurb covers a lot, and no spoilers here other than to warn you to keep the tissues handy for both sad parts and silly stuff. Worth reading.
Steve West continues to be excellent as narrator. (

)

jetangen4571 | May 17, 2018 |

As usual, an excellent entry in the world of Superintendent Richard Jury. This time, an old case from the London bombing of WWII comes to Richard's feet when DCI Mickey Haggerty, an old friend dying of cancer, emphasizes how important it is to him. Two skeletons are found in the remains of The Blue Last pub of a mother and the daughter of the babysitter. But Haggerty doesn't believe that is the daughter of the babysitter; he believes mother and child died together and the daughter of the babysitter is living and pretending to be the grand daughter of the very wealthy Oliver Croft. The case has Jury and Plant working together to prove the fraud and also discover what happened all those years ago.

Very disturbing ending. (

)

phoenixcomet | Mar 12, 2018 |

Not one but two children, and of course a dog. But the dog is getting a little - well - human. I've just seen the movie 'Up' where all the dogs speak, and Sparky doesn't speak out loud, but we do hear his thoughts, and he does have a rather unusual ability to save the day. There's a lot more about the London blitz, WWII fliers, and Renaissance art (that's the Melrose thread). I did enjoy it. (

)

ffortsa | Mar 23, 2010 |

A Richard Jury case — good mystery — ties up one end — not all the motivations

In The Blue Last, Richard Jury finally faces the last thing in the world he wants to deal with—the war that killed his mother, his father, his childhood. Mickey Haggerty, a DCI with the London City police, has asked for Jury's help. Two skeletons have been unearthed in the City during the excavation of London's last bombsite, where once a pub stood called the The Blue Last. Mickey believes that a child who survived the bombing has been posing for over fifty years as a child who didn't. The grandchild of brewery magnet Oliver Tyndale supposedly survived that December 1940 bombing . . . but did she? Mickey also has a murder to solve. Simon Croft, prosperous City financial broker, and son of the one-time owner of The Blue Last is found shot to death in his Thames-side house. But the book he was writing about London during the German blitzkrieg has disappeared.

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christinejoseph | Jul 25, 2016 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Martha Grimes	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Safavi, Philippe	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

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Richard Jury (17)

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First 21 Richard Jury Books by Martha Grimes

▾Awards and Honors

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New York Times bestseller (Fiction – 2001)

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Original publication date

2001

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Important places

London, England, UK

Florence, Tuscany, Italy

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Related movies

Epigraph

Dark hills at evening, in the west
Where sunset hovers like a sound
Of golden horns that sang to rest
Old bones of warriors underground,

Far now from all the bannered ways
Where flash the legions of the sun,
You fade - as if the last of days
Were fading, and all wars were done.

'The Dark Hills'
E.A. Robinson

Dedication

Goodbye, Blue

First words

'"Poet", it says,' "died from stab of rose".'

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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

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Publisher's editors

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▾Book descriptions

Fiction. Mystery. HTML:In The Blue Last, Richard Jury finally faces the last thing in the world he wants to deal with�??the war that killed his mother, his father, his childhood. Mickey Haggerty, a DCI with the London City police, has asked for Jury's help. Two skeletons have been unearthed in the City during the excavation of London's last bombsite, where once a pub stood called the The Blue Last. Mickey believes that a child who survived the bombing has been posing for over fifty years as a child who didn't. The grandchild of brewery magnet Oliver Tyndale supposedly survived that December 1940 bombing . . . but did she? Mickey also has a murder to solve. Simon Croft, prosperous City financial broker, and son of the one-time owner of The Blue Last is found shot to death in his Thames-side house. But the book he was writing about London during the German blitzkrieg has disappeared.

Jury wants to get eyes and ears into Tynedale Lodge, and looks to his friend, Melrose Plant, to play the role. Reluctantly, Plant plays it, accompanied on his rounds of the Lodge gardens by nine-year-old Gemma Trim, orphan and ward of Oliver Tynedale; and Benny Keagan, a resourceful twelve-year-old orphaned delivery boy.

And Richard Jury may not make it out alive.

A stolen book, stolen lives, or is any of this what it seems? Identity, memory, provenance - these are all called into question in The Blue Last

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