Rating: 
Summary: Terrible ending
Review: The ending is totally unacceptable--what a terrible and senseless way to drop one of the most interesting characters in detective fiction.
Rating:
Summary: The Blue Last
Review: I have read and re-read the other Richard Jury novels (the detective here) and I found this book to be a big disappointment after waiting for a new Jury novel for the last several years. The plot hinges on an identification - where is DNA testing? Are the British police too backwards to use it? The book was not carefully edited; Jury's cousin in her early 60's has an 18 month old child and there are other discrepancies as well. There is always a certain degree of moroseness about Jury, here it was intensified, especially in the beginning, and felt stilted and overdone. There was very little comic relief or good dialogue amongst the supporting characters (Melrose Plant, Marshall Trueblood, et al.) The ending did not appear to be well thought out. The plot overall was ridiculous and the level of writing was not sufficient for me to achieve the necessary suspension of disbelief, even for one of my favorite detectives (and writers).
Rating: 
Summary: I would give 3 1/2 if it was here
Review: This is one of Ms. Grimes most frustrating books about her wonderful characters. Her characters are what makes reading her books almost an addicition. I'm a great fan of Melrose Plant and sometimes he almost supplants Jury in my affections - almost, but not quite. Ms. Grimes can delineate characters and set an almost dreamlike quality to her books like no one else. This book is more like this than some of her latest efforts. It seems to go slow, and it jumps around a lot with a lot of extraneous information, but it does all make sense in the end - to a point. This book is sad and sinister. It weaves a spell that sucks the reader in to thinking that this is another one of Ms. Grimes' "cosies". And then bang. It all becomes extremely real and deadly at the end. Without giving away the entire plot I would like to mention that I hope we haven't heard the last of Jury, Plant, Carole Ann, Mrs. Wasserman, Diane and Marshall.
Rating:
Summary: Surprised and disappointed
Review: I've always liked the Richard Jury novels and am always looking forward to the next one. I did like The Blue Last but found the ending to be extremely frustrating and maddening. I didn't feel there was real resolution, is he or isn't he? So we are left to wait and see if this is really it! Please don't let it be, the series has been too entertaining and worth looking forward to!
Rating:
Summary: Maybe time to end the series.
Review: I won't re-hash what everyone else has said already--But I actually liked the Florence trip to authenticate the painting. I think the point there is--do you really have to know if something or someone is authentic?If you have lived with and loved Maisie for 50 years, does it matter if she isn't really a blood relation? Or do you appreciate her for who she is--just like Trueblood's beautiful painting. After all, whether she is "real" or not, Maisie is hardly at fault, since she was a baby at the time of the bombing. Like other readers, I am having a hard time with the timeline in the Jury novels. Just how old is everyone, and is the story taking place "now" or a few years ago? If Maisie had an older sister (about 55 years old) how likely is it that 9-year-old Gemma could be the sister's daughter? Not to mention Jury's older cousin who has a baby.) And no one has pyjamas mixing Tweetie Bird with Disney characters. I think Martha Grimes is tired of this line of books, and if so she's might as well stop rather than dragging things out painfully for the fans. This book had a lot of potential, but too much co-incidence and unanswered questions. (Who is Gemma anyway? And why does every female in sight look like Vivian Leigh?) I always liked the way Hercule Poirot would wrap up everything at the end of a Christie novel!
Rating: 
Summary: Time to Put Richard Jury to Bed
Review: Martha Grimes is in a pickle. Without a doubt many of her Richard Jury fans won't read her other fiction. But how she is betraying the long-time fans of this series named after pubs with the stale, meandering plotting in "The Blue Last." Suspenseful, this book is not. (Grimes breaks every mystery-writing convention in the book. This used to be all right! Now she's writing like an amateur!) Seems to me it's time for Grimes to put Richard Jury and his oh-so-tiresome friends to bed, inaugurate another series. It will be like a bump in the road, but loyal fans will follow. But Mrs. Grimes, let's drop the sideshow acts and stick to the main plot!
Rating:
Summary: Martha Grimes is clearly bored with her characters
Review: I'm glad she killed Jury in the end, because she clearly shouldn't write anymore books with him. This one went nowhere. It meandered without purpose and then died without reason. Don't buy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Complex and absorbing
Review: Richard Jury doesn't want to think about the war that killed his parents and his childhood, but when Mickey asks for his investigative help after two skeletons are unearthed during the excavation of a bomb site, Jury finds himself investigating a pub, a bomb, and his own past. Complex and absorbing.
Rating:
Summary: Frustrated!
Review: I have been a devoted Martha Grimes fan for years, and couldn't wait to get "The Blue Last". Well, the story was great, and held my attention, and was wonderful - then what happened? Did Ms. Grimes decide to just chuck it all in the last chapter? I was bitterly disappointed with the terrible ending. and not wanting to spoil this for new readers, can only reiterate what sort of ending was that? Plus, the Gemma Trimm plot was completely dropped - was she or was she not a relation of the Tynesdales? Ms. Grimes books don't always have 'happy endings', but they have always had logical endings, which is why I was so disappointed with what I feel is a very poor wrap-up to "The Blue Last". I have always recommended these books to friends and co-workers in the past, but after this extremely disappointing ending to what was, until that point, a really good book, I would be very hesitant to recommend any of her new books to anyone, including myself, and I certainly won't be paying the hardcover price for the next book in the series. I'll get it from the library.
Rating:
Summary: Smart animals/dumb detectives/confused readers
Review: There's something to be said for authors' holding off from annual additions to their series when they can't come up with clear plots. Grimes relies on super-brained animals to get her off the hook. And the notion of the hero swooning and bleeding in the last chapter is one that tired authors use too often. On the other hand, if it allows Jury to get it on with his neighbor/popsy in the next edition, maybe it's worth it.
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