Rating: 
Summary: This book is a mystery to me!
Review: My first experience reading a "Richard Jury Mystery" by Martha Grimes. Not one I will soon voluntarily repeat. Such incredible talent in her bitey aside comments, and turns and twists of phrase... such a good idea was this story line... such a loveable heroine, Nell... somehow Grimes still manages to disgust and appall and infuriate me. Ugh. With all that native talent, how could she allow this story and these characters go SO awry?
Rating: 
Summary: A slower pace, but still shows good form
Review: Perhaps Grimes is growing a little tired of the Richard Jury formula. In any case, she rings a few changes in The Grave Maurice, and has a little fun paying oblique tribute to Josephine Tey and Dick Francis, without trying to imitate either one. The biggest change is that Jury is still largely sidelined, from injuries received in the previous episode, which sets Melrose Plant more front and center. Another difference is that this book is less self-contained than the rest, relying on the reader to import some back story from The Blue Last.I had worried that Grimes, in a spirit of homage to Francis, would attempt to plunge into details of the horse-racing world. She couldn't have possibly competed with Francis's authenticity in that arena, but fortunately she didn't try. All the action takes place in the much more laid-back world of a stud farm, with the only races being the ghosts of remembered heats in the beautiful Philip Larkin poem that serves as the epigraph. And Martha writes several scenes from the point of view of one of the farm's retired animals, a flight of lyric fancy that would have struck Francis as silly if it had ever occurred to him. Here it works just fine. The pace is very relaxed. The plot, as some negative reviewers have noted, is also laid out in a fashion relaxed enough to be count, maybe, as sloppy. After all, Jury is on a forced holiday. So the pace and the noodling turns of the case fit. And I was relieved to be spared the obligatory office visit, with Cyril's obligatory humiliation of Racer. The overall mood, though quiet, remains dark. Perhaps even darker than The Blue Last. Don't expect a feel-good ending, and be prepared for a smaller than usual dose of comic relief at Long Pid. It's certainly not Grimes's finest outing, but it was a decent read and in some ways a fresh approach to the series. By no means is it time yet for Grimes to put Jury and Plant out to pasture. I'm at a loss to understand the vehemence of some of the bad reviews here, which is why I've rounded my 3.5 star evaluation up rather than down.
Rating:
Summary: I wanted to get it, but I really didn't get it.
Review: Reading this book is actually a little bit of a dislocating experience. I really like Martha Grimes' writing, even when I quibble about some of the plot elements, and I'd really looked forward to a long hot bath enjoying this one. And I did enjoy the book, for about 90 pages. The build-up was nice. I liked the characters. I thought racing and a stud farm was going to be good material for Grimes. But the trouble was, after 90 pages the plot completely fell apart. I've actually gone back and re-read sections and I still don't get everything that happened with Maurice's father. I certainly found the stuff around Nell and the farm stretched until you could hear the fabric of the book screaming. And I'm angry about the fact that I knew what was going to happen at the end of the book. The world doesn't really need any more too-good-to-live characters, does it? I'm honestly surprised that her publishers let her go to market with the book in this state. From any other author, it would get less than one star. For Grimes, and because I still enjoyed elements of it, I gave it one star extra.
Rating:
Summary: Predominantly for Martha Grimes¿ fans
Review: Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury lies in the hospital recovering from the near fatal shooting (see THE BLUE LAST) that left him in a coma. As he slowly begins to feel a little better, Richard is bored with inactivity, needs distraction, and struggles to ignore his starchy nurse. Richard's assistant Melrose Plant provides the recuperating cop with a juicy tidbit that he overheard in the Grave Maurice Pub involving the daughter of the doctor tending to the injured law enforcement official. Two female patrons were discussing the disappearance of fifteen year old Nell Ryder and her family's valuable thoroughbred Aqueduct. The case of the teen's disappearance is officially cold, but Richard and Melrose begin discussing it. Soon the latter begins investigating the vanishing under Richard's bedside direction. The latest Jury police procedural depends too much on coincidence and horse breeding than on hard core investigative skills, but fans of the series will enjoy seeing the star returning to his feisty self. Though the mystery is a bit weak as Jury novels go, Melrose and Nurse Bell make the tale fun for readers with their radically different personalities playing the stage through Richard. Predominantly for Martha Grimes' fans, THE GRAVE MAURICE is overall an entertaining tale, just a pint short of what the audience expects from this talented author. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: This may be my last Martha Grimes book...
Review: The good news about this book is that it reunites us with Richard Jury and Melrose Plant. The bad news is that Martha Grimes can't figure out if she wants to write plausible forensic murder, implausible sensational murder, or drawing room comedy. I keep thinking I'm going to just give up on her and this time I just might. This one stretches the reader's gullibility to extremes and although it makes a very good point about the horrible fate of the thousands of pregnant mares who supply the drug industry with their urine for hormone replacement therapy, she doesn't give this choice story thread a chance. One of the things that I hate the most is going back and forth from serious murder mystery to the comedy of Long Piddlington, home of zany denizens and Melrose Plant. It is like she can't decide which kind of story to write, so she writes both.
Rating: 
Summary: one foot in the grave maurice
Review: The Grave Maurice begins with the solid fictional premise of love and denial in the extended family. But instead of developing any plot or characterization, Grimes relies on vaguely ridiculous humor that will be of interest only to dedicated fans. Brush away the stock characters and the initial conceit and all that is left is an artless "tina and tom meet animal rights."
Rating:
Summary: A mendacious rant disguised as a novel
Review: The Grave Maurice isn't really a mystery novel; it is a long winded, ill-informed rant against Premarin, a prescription medication that saves women's lives. I know what I'm talking about - this drug was the only thing that helped me after an emergency surgery to save my life left me with a severe hormone imbalance. Back to the book: shallow, unbelievable characters, too many coincidences and too many dangling threads at the end. One murder and its solution are tossed around like an inconvenient afterthought, and the motivation for the main kidnapping/prisoner/torture scenario is too weak for words.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful, thought provoking book
Review: This is a book which grabs your attention from the beginning. I had avoided it because I thought the subject matter would bother me. I can't stand to read about animals in pain. But I managed to persevere and really enjoyed it. I have to confess that I hated the ending, but I could see how it fit the book. I have looked up Premarin on the internet. It is as awful as portrayed in the book. Humans are anything but, I'm afraid.
Rating:
Summary: melrose ( again )
Review: This isn't my favourite Grimes but Melrose IS in it and so are lots of horses. How can you go wrong ? A wonderful re-working of Josephine Tey's "Daughter of Time!" Lots of Wiggins... Lots of Jury... lots of fighting over who gets the banana out of many hospital fruit baskets. A charming way to revive Jury and get him back on track... with Long Piddletonian intervals which are, as always, pure magic!
Rating: 
Summary: The Grave Morose
Review: This latest from Martha Grimes was easily put down through the first half. Picked up half way through with some notion of redemtion, but the ending left a fruther bad taste in the mouth. I can't say this was poorly done, but is is not representative of the Richard Jury series, more like her other books with dispondent aimless characters. (No matter how many time the work "focused" was used, unbelievably surmised from a photograph, she was aimless through out the book). The plot did not particularly hold together well, some characters stuffed in to plug obvious gaps in the ploting. I was expecting a more fun read Grimes, had I known, I would have read it a nother time.
| 
