The Blue Last: A Richard Jury Mystery

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Summary: oh Martha! what have you done?
Review: I have read every single Richard Jury mystery and have thoroughly enjoyed this series. In Ms. Grime's latest installment, The Blue Last, we have the same cast of characters Jury, Plant, the gang at Long Pidd, Carole Anne, Mrs. Wasserman, Wiggins, et al, involved in a mystery with a great premise. I won't involve myself with the details of the setup as other reviews contain it. I have however several issues. 1) Repeatedly throughout the set up of the case, Ms. Grimes writes that this is the job of a forensic pathologist. One is never introduced through out the whole of the novel. As Jury and other of his detective comrades have had issues with coroners and such, it seems odd that this forensics expert would not have been one of the characters of the story. 2) The Plant/Trueblood escapade is thoroughly useless and does nothing to further the plot of the mystery. It is not entertaining as the Long Pidd characters are caricatures of themselves. Instead of delving further into Melrose's character, we see the same old same old. Also, the whole art escapade is a weak effort. Maybe it helped Ms. Grimes write off a Tuscan vacation? As there are so many other mystery novels dealing with art that are better (i.e. the Flanders Panel), this foray into an art mystery is unappealing. 3) Haggerty's illness is overly melodramatic. As it would stand to reason that he would have asked for Jury's help on a case anyway, the leukemia issue is a bit that is worn very thin by the end of the novel. This brings me to 4) the ending of the novel is awful. I have no issues with the concept of it (I am trying not to give away the ending). The way in which it was written was incomplete, rushed, and overwrought. Perhaps Ms. Grimes needed to get back to here Tuscan vacation, one can't be sure. Surely, there was more detail and more fleshing out to the characters that could have been done before coming to this conclusion. As Mr. Jury is one of my favorite mystery characters, Ms. Grimes had a very receptive audience in a reader like myself. Because she seems to be quite bored with this premise, perhaps she should call it quits with Richard Jury and move onto a fresh subject.

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Summary: The Blue Last: A Richard Jury Mystery by Martha Grimes
Review: I just can't beleive Ms. Grimes could end it this way. I live for these books so to speak and I was so shocked at the end that I literally threw the book and cursed. The book is a great read though!

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Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I enjoy novels dealing with WWII. Throw a Richard Jury story into the mix and I was ready for a good winter diverson - or so I thought! I found so many loose ends and so much implausibility that I was more irritated than satisfied by the time I finished this book. For example, Jury's older cousin whose husband is out of work has an eighteen month old child sleeping in the other room when Jury visits - plus 3 teenagers! She had to be in her 60's, doesn't she? How plausible is that? A major point on which the book hinged was the death of Alexandra Tyndale and Erin Riordin in a Blitz bombing of the Old Last pub. Didn't anyone in all these years, especially after the bombing stopped, clear the rubble to find the bodies, identify the victims, give them a proper burial, especially with all the money the families had? One more small oversight was the idea that the Masaccio pictures were "found" in a church. Just how does one go about "finding" such items. Churches don't even sell their artwork, let alone allow one to walk off with them. Yes, the woman was proved to be a fraud, but Jury does buy her "found" story.
Too bad there were so many irritants in what could have been the best yet in the series. Perhaps there will be a sequel and we'll find out who shot at Gemma, what becomes of her and Benny - school and a proper home for each of them, I hope, will Kitty and Erin (Maisie) get jail time, who shot Mickey, will Jury live, and the big question: how can Melrose ever hope to keep his "Masaccio" a secret from Trueblood?

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Summary: The Blue Last
Review: Although I have always enjoyed the Richard Jury series with all the characters and plots, this book was a big disappointment. The plot wandered all over the place, with a side trip to Italy with Melrose and Trueblood which had nothing to do with the mystery. Also, the main mystery was never really explained or solved, characters you cared about were left in limbo, and the ending was absolutely awful, didn't make any sense at all.

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Summary: It may be the last blue . . .
Review: Another terrific story from M. Grimes. As always, her prose is a joy to read and her characters wonderfully engaging. The end of the story is foreshadowed in the title of the book and, if this is the end, it is entirely appropriate. One of the elements of her books I enjoy most is the combination of humor and despair. Don't let the negative reviews put you off - it's a great read.

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Summary: Blue but not the last!
Review: Melancholy, soul searching, and the universal question: How much of events that we "remember" actually occurred? 'The Blue Last' meanders these gloomy labyrinths to great effect. Yet, I confess, I hate it when Richard Jury gets depressed -- Ms. Grimes's depiction of it is so penetrating that I get a bit down myself. The mystery of the child-swapping is perhaps less intriguing than the mystery of how our minds and emotions and perceptions work together to create memory and to blind us to reality, but it all overlaps as Richard plumbs this internal mystery only to find it continues to blind him to what is immediately around him: Danger (just as Diane Demorney predicted!). I'm curious to see what effect this will have on Jury's character in the future. Will he stop muddling around with all the wrong women and find the right one? Or has she been right in front of him all this time? I can't wait to see what happens to Richard next.

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Summary: Really a waste, I agree
Review: I wish I'd read the reviews before I waited so long for the library to have it available. I'm glad I didn't buy it. I wonder now if I will even consider reading her next one, if there is one.

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Summary: Please !
Review: I read The Blue Last as soon as it hit the shelves in September. Being a slow reader, I was quite proud of myself that I finished the book in three days (I have a toddler). I must say that I was so mad by the end of the book, that I could't go to bed for at least an hour. Why would Martha write such an end? My friend, who read the book after me, knew what was coming throughout the whole read. I, on the other hand, was blindsided. Is Martha so tired of Jury that she planned this horrible demise? I, myself, want more. I need to know the outcome. This just cannot be the end.

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Summary: The Blue Last
Review: Martha Grimes either hits the nail squarely on the head, or misses it completely. This title: big miss! A Chinese smorgasbord of a book (if there could be such a thing): take one from column A, six from column B, skip column C...
The premise was intriguing--wartime London and something of Jury's past explained, but the book was thoroughly disjointed, with unnecessary subplots and unbelievable characters. When I turned the final page (at long last!), my only reaction was, "What was that?" Disappointed? Yes!

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Summary: what a waste of time
Review: Boy, was I disappointed by this book. I can't recall ever reading another mystery where the author has shown such disdain for her readers. I would complain about all the loose ends but since Ms. Grimes didn't really bother to tie anything together it seems superfluous. I definitely agree with those that said she seemed to have reached her page limit and just ended the story abruptly. That alone would be frustrating but the rest of the book makes little sense either. I actually went back and reread large portions of the book to see if I had skipped something because the characters seem to leap to conclusions with little or no foundation -- no such luck, the book really doesn't make much sense. The usual contract between a mystery writer and her readers is that the clues are embedded within the story if only the reader is clever enough to discern them. In this case that contract is broken. The murderer's motive is highly implausible, major characters are suddenly dropped(what did happen to Benny and Gemma?), and Melrose suddenly has a burst of inspiration that comes from nowhere. The sad thing is that this book had a promising premise -- it explores memories of England in WWII -- and the series is one I have enjoyed in the past. Admittedly, it was already starting to seem a bit shopworn(does every mystery have to involve precocious children) but if the author is tired of writing the series (as her alter ego within the book hints) the honorable solution is to stop writing more Richard Jury books. Instead, Ms. Grimes has chosen to foist a half baked mess on an unwitting public -- I suppose she made more money this way but at the expense of any authorial pride.