Martha Grimes is one of the most talented writers of our time. Her only weakness, in my opinion, is her blatant homophobia. Of course, most readers will think one of her returning characters, Marshall Trueblood, is gay, but those who have read the first in the series, "Man With a Load of Mischief", will know that he is actually only a flamboyant heterosexual. In "The Old Contemptables", I found some of the most hateful writing I have ever experienced. Even the title, "The Old Contemptables" refers to her feelings about gays and lesbians. Come on, Martha! You're a good writer. Keep your hate to yourself!

This book is a wonderful example of Martha Grimes' intelligence and creativity. A great addition to the Jury series.

I've read every Richard Jury, and this one reaches near the top of my list. I couldn't put it down. Martha is wonderful, she keeps you guessing till the very end. By far my favorite author.

If you like Martha Grimes, you'll most likely find Jill McGowan just as delightful! I recommend checking out her first in a wonderful series, "Perfect Match"

Happy Reading!

Although there was the occasional astute observation, most of the chapters were just completely made up and abit too tongue in cheek for me. There was nothing real for a person to sink their teeth into and laugh with true recognition. As a year rounder, I might enjoy reading this as a column in the MV Times, but was disappointed by the book.

45 Minutes to America captures the quirky, infuriating, and amuing personality that makes the Vineyard special. It's a great gift for anyone who has spent any time on the island. It will bring back all those great memories from being stuck in traffic at Five Corners to negotiating for beach stickers. The book is full of the kind of ironic observations that you want to read aloud to someone - maybe just the thing to pass the time while waiting in the standby line at the ferry!

This is a reprint of a novel copyrighted in 1986. As in other novels by this author, the title is the name of a pub. Inspector Jury is joined again by Melrose Plant who has an estate near Long Piddleton on the River Piddle. In this novel, Jury is assigned to a case where a young woman has been strangled with her own scarf. The investigation reopens an older, unsolved case where another young woman was also strangled with her own scarf. Inquiries into the pasts of the two women turn up love affairs that may be related - both women were sleeping around to some degree.

The questions are whether these are serial killings or well-planned murders, and what would be the motive. Various odd characters are introduced including the odd family that owns and operates the Mortal Man. While the plot is interesting, digressions into discussions of the various characters (many not involved in the main plot) tends to detract from the main story line. At times, the story seems to wander.

When events are finally drawn together, it seems a bit abrupt. The story comes to a climax as the solution to the mystery is revealed, but it seems to leave some loose ends. A short added chapter might have closed things out better. One is left to wonder what finally happened to some of the characters.

After reading "I am the Only Running Footman" I am again satisfied with yet another great Martha Grimes novel. Her stories contain a great collection of mystery crimes with the lead detective being Richard Jury. In this book, Richard has to team up with an old rival in order to solve one of this centuries greatest cases, the scarves murder. But there seem to be no leads. So will Jury and arch rival Macalvie be able to put their past behind them and solve this crime, or will there be yet another victim of the fatal scarves.

This is the first book by Martha Grimes I have read, after a couple of friends recommended her. She has a witty style and is obviously well-read (references to Shakespeare and the Elizabethan world play an important role in the book). Unfotunately the denouement, contrary to a reviewer's blurb on the back cover, is not well conceived and is resolved with the help of a deus ex machina-character flown into England on a Concorde jet liner (really). The main characters, Richard Jury and Melrose Plant, are likable; this book may just be a weak entry in the series.

I am puzzled by Martha Grimes' response to Americans in this novel. As an American, albeit one who is writing British mysteries, she comes up with a whole tour full of unsympathetic American tourists here--even down to what I think are supposed to be humerous names for them. I think this is unfortunate, since it weakens the book, which has a plot that could have held up just as well if the characters were less insistantly annoying.
Martha Grimes is one of my favorite writers, and I don't think this novel holds up anywhere near as well as the others in this wonderful series.

I was taking a few days off work (can you call it vacation if you mostly stay home and drive your kids and their friends around?) so I didn't want to read the stack of business books waiting for me. And I didn't feel ready to get back into Tolkien. I told my wife I wanted a mystery that I could read in a couple of days - nothing as cerebral as Holmes, but not a fluff (vacation shouldn't be a total waste). She hands me The Dirty Duck. Yes another really great Detective Superintendent Richard Jury story. A bucket full of interesting (read: quirky, but loveable) characters in a great setting (Stratford-on Avon) - only one of them has this nasty thing about using a razor in a most unconventional way - and then leaving a bit of poetry on the corpses as a signature. And just to add a twist, a little boy who is related to two of the victims is missing. I put Martha Grimes right up there with Christie for character and plot twists any day. If you haven't sampled Martha Grimes yet, you don't know what you are missing.

The second in the series, Living Voices of the Past, of diaries of the 1800s is the memoir of Martha Dunham Summerhayes' adventures of an Army wife as she follows her husband from post to post.

Born and educated in New England, Martha (Mattie) is a well-traveled young lady, having spent time in Europe, most notably Germany. The tales of her life begin with her marriage to Jack Summerhayes in 1874. She follows him to the Wyoming Territory and Fort Russell where she learns that Army wives don't have nurse, cooks, and maids. She is totally on her own and makes due with what she can. She learns to put up with sand storms, scorpions, wild coyotes stealing their food, Indians, Mexicans, and the Army protocol.

Mattie is a woman who is not used to hardship, but as the memoir is told from the early 20th century, the hardships and reality checks she faces do not seem so difficult as they must have been when she was enduring them.

Mattie follows Jack to more than ten posts during his 30-year career. Along the way she has two children, Harry and Katherine, but Mattie seems more concerned with her own comfort and illnesses along the way than she does about her babies. Most of the time she refers to Harry as her son, and it is a good hour and a half before listeners learn his name.

Jane Merrifield-Beecher is the voice of Mattie. She reads Mattie's memories so fast, that they are often difficult to decipher. Mattie's memories are rather superficial and while listeners learn about life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the adventure is more like a bad "B" movie than a real-life account of an Army wife.

This type of narrative is a relative rarity in the history of the American border, and Arizona in particular. This is not only a woman's perspective but the views and memories of an army wife. The only comparable books that come to mind are the trilogy of Cavalry life by Libbie Custer. Mrs. Custer's books are more polished but more suspect as the information is filtered by her desire to glorify her husband. Mrs. Summerhayes account does not have this weakness and she is more concerned with how the events affect her children and herself. Her description of the Arizona landscape and conditions of Army life stays with you. In particular the sequence in which she is being transported through hostile territory when she is possibly in more danger from her husband than the Indians. This book adds much to the history of the Southwest and is justifiably considered a classic.

This is the story of a Nantucket woman who marries a cavalry officer and moves with him to various Army forts in the late 19th century. A very personal story of Army life in Indian country, raising children in very trying conditions, a travelog and adventure story. The tales of getting back and forth between Nantucket and Arizona is worth the reading alone.

~-~
I'm writing this review as a slightly disappointed, fanatic fan of the Superintendent Jury and Melrose Plant mystery series.
~One of my favorite features of Martha Grimes stories, has been the way in which her protagonists react to the people around them. The eccentric and mysterious women who fall in and out of Jury's life; as well as the colorful Long Piddleton cast of characters. ~~Maybe most of all I've enjoyed the way they interact with the children who appear in many stories as central characters, either with essential information, or in danger and need of protection, unwanted as it may be. Jury's skillful, and Plant's reluctant interviewing techniques are often highlights of the story.
~I have always relied on Grimes to preserve these kids and other "likeable" characters from harm, and she has done so.
In this book, I feel she doesn't quite keep to that unwritten promise. Don't worry I'm not giving anything away: right from the start the history of a tragedy appears. One of the central mysteries of this story is the tragic drowning death of two children from the cliffs outside their home.
~When the spotlight of the story sticks to the "current" mysteries in this seaside town, (the murder of a former servant, the inexplicable disappearance of a reliable local businesswoman), this is an entertaining and interesting Grimes story.
~Jury fans may be disappointed, but this story really belongs to Melrose and to Brian Macalvie, the local CID chief who is willing to drive himself into the ground in pursuit of justice.
~The resolution of all the mysteries seems a little far-fetched, but I would have been willing to suspend disbelief. The one part that disturbed me greatly was the dark and horrible solution to the death of the children.
~~~~ A good read for fans of Melrose and Jury, but those who love children may want to skip the last scene entirely- I believe it adds unnecessarily gruesome detail to an already dark and disturbing plot twist.

Having read all of her books, liking some more than others, it was a pleasure to get to know Melrose Plant better. Melrose is a man for whom his past dictates his present. The more you learn about his past, the more layered a character he becomes. Melrose is the central character through whom you meet everyone in this book and learn of the various murders and mysteries. With help from Macalvie and much later Jury, he is involved in every aspect of solving this case. Macalvie is always intense and absorbing. I also did not like the child murder angle, but to think something like that does not exist is to live in a bubble, but I'm not sure I like it in a Martha Grimes novel. Ms. Grimes does seem to be getting more "real world" in her murders and motives. I always look forward to her Richard Jury novels. This book was definitely an improvement over the Case Has Altered and The Stargazey. I hope she continues to develop Melrose Plant and gives Richard Jury more depth in his personal life. Please either marry off Vivian or give her some character--she's such a wet blanket.

I love Martha Grimes' Richard Jury novels, not so much for the murder mystery in each one, but for the update on the lives of her familiar characters. I wish I could have a group of friends like Melrose Plant, Marshall Trueblood, Richard Jury, Diane Demornay, and all the others who sit around (daily, and all-day, it seems) at the Jack and Hammer in Long Piddleton. This book continues their story. Vivian, at last, is to be married, her fiance comes to Long Pid and meets the crowd. Melrose is almost on his own to solve the mystery, but he has help from other favorite characters, Sergeant Wiggins and Commander Brian MacAlvie. I enjoyed this book very much, and only regret that I will have so long to wait until Martha Grimes writes the next installment in the series.

Fairly decent guide book, but somewhat overpriced for a paperback. The inclusion of logos from some establishments makes me wonder if their reviews have been skewed by a monetary inducement to the author... Also, I can't believe a Cape Cod guide book that doesn't include a reference to Cuffy's factory store!

My wife and I used this book to find accomodations for our honeymoon in Cape Cod. We bought this book and the Fodor's guide to Nantucket, Cape Code and Martha's Vineyard. We liked this one because it lists more places to stay than the Fodor's book, although it can be difficult to use based upon the way it is organized. The chapters are divided according to the kind of accomodation (hotel, B&B, rental) rather than the location of these accomodations. If you are looking for a particular kind of accomodation, this book would be well-suited to your needs. However, if you are more particular about staying in a specific location on the Cape (or the islands), then you may find something like the Fodor's guide to be more helpful.

We stayed in two locations on the Cape -- the first was recommended by both books and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay there (Nauset House Inn). The second was listed only by the Insider's Guide in the B&B section, and it was quite disappointing. Rather than being warmly welcomed, we were continually reminded by our hosts that our room was part of their "private home" (those words were used on three separate occasions) and that we should take care not to disturb their privacy. We felt like unwelcome intruders, and we wished that the Insider's Guide had more clearly described these accomodations. We were temporary visitors in a private home rather than welcome guests at a hospitable bed and breakfast. The Guide said that the hosts "make you feel at home" [paraphrased], but they did just the opposite in our case. In fact, much of the time they were not around, apparently busy at their day jobs. When they insinuated that we were like renters for one of their other "properties", we realized that being hosts for the bed and breakfast was clearly a part-time occupation.

It's possible that the second B&B was just a bad apple. Yet, I wonder if the "Insider" who wrote the book included the latter B&B because of a personal relationship with the B&B owner. If the author was made to feel at home at the B&B, perhaps it was because the author, as an "insider" was not able to maintain an inconspicuous profile when compiling the book. Ultimately, I lay some blame upon the book (and its author) for recommending a place owned by inhospitable landlords-cum-B&B owners. Warning: an "insider's" perspective may not be in your best interest.

Anticipating more of the humor and eccentricities that characterized the first in this series, The Man with a Load of Mischief, I was disappointed to find much of it missing in this second book, The Old Fox Deceiv'd. The plot is as intelligent and intriguing as all of Grimes' stories in the Richard Jury series, but I prefer it balanced with the charm and delightful characterizations of the denizes of that English village Long Piddleton. While Richard Jury is Grimes' hero in this series, the character of Melrose Plant is the one that makes me keep returning to these books for more.

I was a fan of Martha Grimes, but gave up after her last few books, which I didn't enjoy. Since I do like the Richard Jury novels, I decide to give this one a try. The mystery was a good one, although the bit about Melrose and Trueblood traipsing through Italy had nothing to do with the main plot--just a diversion and change of pace, but I can't see the point. The ending is a true disappointment, and I found myself skimming through the book after reading the last page trying to see if I had missed something. I really hate it when the endings of books are ambiguous. Martha, please don't toy with us!

I find myself tending to agree with the reviewers who had the feeling that _The Blue Last_ was two books melded together. The best bit about the Richard Jury novels has always been the combination of charming and affecting. Jury himself (in the best of the books) stands apart from the other zany folks, but not *so* far above. In _The Blue Last_, while Jury is actually getting more interesting (not a mean feat in his 17th novel) the Long Piddlingtons are dangerously close to charactature.

Suggest that Grimes may take the feeling that she's getting with Jury and the plot in this novel and create a whole new character/series.

Martha Grimes is one of the best writers ever. I got hooked on my first book The Stargazey and I have since read eight other of her Richard Jury Mysteries. They put right there in the middle of Richard's friends. You tour wonderful English Pubs and experience entertaining conversations. In between books you'll wonder what your friends Richard, Melrose, Wiggins and Marshall are doing. Martha's books make you feel part of this world she has created. My suggestion is to read a few chapters, then enjoy a cup of tea, all on a cold rainy day. Read this book and make new friends, plus enjoy "trying" to solve the mystery before Scottland Yard's finest does.