I have been a fan of the Richard Jury series since its beginning, but this, the latest installment, was incredibly disappointing. First, and most importantly, the "mystery" is secondary to Grimes' primary goal, which is to lambaste a real pharmaceutical company. She is an avid animal rights activist, (for which I do not fault her), but this format should not be a platform for her political agenda, at least without notifying her reader of her intentions. Her attacks dominate the book. (Biting the Moon, her unabashed effort to this end, is absolutely awful.) Beyond this, the editing was erratic, with numerous misplaced quotation marks and grammatical errors. Lastly, we can only conclude that Grimes views her American audience as blissfully ignorant and uncaring of UK geography. Check the proximity of Hadrian's Wall to Cambridge. All together a dismal disappointment, especially as the denouement to Jury bleeding out in the last novel.

I find myself agreeing with the first few reviewers about "The Grave Maurice" -- it was not a very engrossing or compelling a read. The first few chapters were very well done. Martha Grimes sets up the premise for the mystery-plot beautifully: Richard Jury is in hospital (The London Royal Hospital) recovering from having been seriously shot in "The Blue Last." Bored and restless, his interest is somewhat piqued when his friend, Melrose Plant, tells him of a conversation he overheard at the Grave Maurice (a pub near the hospital). Apparently Jury's surgeon, Roger Ryder, suffered a tremendous loss a couple of years ago when his fifteen year old daughter, Nell, went missing. Coincidentally, Ryder decides to confide in Jury as well, and to ask for his help in resolving the issue of his missing daughter. It turns out that Ryder's father owns a very prestigious stud farm in Cambridgeshire, and Nell, who was completely horse mad as well as possessing a rather magical empathy with horses, was living with her grandfather when she was abducted. The strange thing was that there was no demand for a ransom. And in spite of the fact that it's been almost two years, none of the Ryders have ever given up hope that Nell will return to them one day. And what Roger Ryder wants from Jury to take a fresh look at Nell's case and to see if there are any new avenues that the investigation could take. And with some alacrity Jury agrees. But the discovery of the body of a mysterious murdered woman on the Ryder Stud Farm soon throws a spanner in the works. Who was she? Why was she at the farm? And could her murder have anything to do with Nell's kidnapping? These are the questions Jury has to find answers to if he is unlock the secrets that the Ryder farm holds.

As I noted earlier, the novel opens well, but after the first few chapters, the book suddenly seems to loose focus. There is plenty of atmosphere. Though I'm still not sure about the bits where we read what the horses actually think/feel -- it didn't really advance the mystery plot and just seemed to get in the way of plot development even though it did (I suppose) lend itself to the feel and mood of the plot. And there is a lot of character development. And again I wondered about this -- some of the characters just didn't need to be fully developed as secondary characters at all as they were not at all essential to the plot. Grimes, however, spared nothing in fleshing them out properly. And again I felt as if this did get in the way of the smooth flow of the mystery plot. I did a lot of FLIPPING and SKIMMING while reading this novel.

And again we have the usual characters (Vivianne, Aunt Agatha, Trueblood, Carole-anne, etc) that put in an appearance even though they have very little to do with the main plot, as well as episodes that had nothing at all to do with the mystery proper -- like the bits that dealt with fox hunting. How exactly it contributed to the storyline at hand still puzzles me. I found all these extra bits to be distracting and really irritating. And while I did appreciate Martha Grimes's salute to Josephine Tey, this novel did not at all compare well to "The Daughter of Time" in that that book was a totally engrossing read that really sucked you into the mystery at hand. Sad to say, "The Grave Maurice" was not a very satisfying Richard Jury/Melrose Plant murder mystery. There have been better Richard Jury/Melrose Plant mystery novels, and might I suggest that time would be better spent rereading any one of them?

This novel reminded me of one of those Russian nesting dolls, where you keep finding another doll inside of the one you are holding, when you take the doll apart. There's enough plot and character development here for 6 novels.

I graded the book down mostly because no one should read this novel without having read quite a few of the earlier ones in the series. Most of the best references and ironies won't mean much otherwise. And many of them are rather long sections. Even in a series, authors need to make novels as stand-alone as they can.

I also graded the book down because one plot element just didn't make sense to me (the location of the missing heroine for two years).

On the other hand, I thought that the development of the theme of honoring animal rights was well done. I don't remember a novel that does it any better.

Along the way, I had a lot of fun. Regular Richard Jury and Martha Grimes fans should definitely read this one! The Grave Maurice is one of Melrose Plant's best and most humorous outings. You see new sides of Richard Jury, and they will make him more appealing to you.

I also appreciated the reference to Josephine Tey's wonderful book about Richard III. The Grave Maurice is also as steeped in English horse racing as the typical Dick Francis effort, which made the book all the more appealing to me.

After you finish this story, think about the moral priorities for you in protecting life and liberty! What comes first?