The Grave Maurice

Richard Jury #18

by Martha Grimes

"Chew on this," says Melrose Plant to Richard Jury, who's in the hospital being driven crazy by Hannibal, a nurse who likes to speculate on his chances for survival. Jury could use a good story, preferably one not ending with his own demise. Plant tells Jury of something he overheard in The Grave Maurice, a pub near the hospital. A woman told an intriguing story about a girl named Nell Ryder, granddaughter to the owner of the Ryder Stud Farm in Cambridgeshire, who went missing more than a year before and has never been found. What is especially interesting to Plant is that Nell is also the daughter of Jury's surgeon. But Nell's disappearance isn't the only mystery at the Ryder farm. A woman has been found dead on the track-a woman who was a stranger even to the Ryders. But not to Plant. She's the woman he saw in The Grave Maurice. Together with Jury, Nell's family, and the Cambridgeshire police, Plant embarks on a search to find Nell and bring her home. But is there more to their mission than just restoring a fifteen-year-old girl to her family? The Grave Maurice is the eighteenth entry in the Richard Jury series and, from its pastoral opening to its calamitous end, is full of the same suspense and humor that devoted readers expect from Martha Grimes.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, British Literature, Crime, Detective, Mystery Thriller, Thriller

400 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 26, 2002

About the author

Martha Grimes is an American author of detective fiction.

She was born May 2 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to D.W., a city solicitor, and to June, who owned the Mountain Lake Hotel in Western Maryland where Martha and her brother spent much of their childhood. Grimes earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Frostburg State University, and Montgomery College.

Grimes is best known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Her page-turning, character-driven tales fall into the mystery subdivision of "cozies." In 1983, Grimes received the Nero Wolfe Award for best mystery of the year for The Anodyne Necklace.

The background to Hotel Paradise is drawn on the experiences she enjoyed spending summers at her mother's hotel in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. One of the characters, Mr Britain, is drawn on Britten Leo Martin, Sr, who then ran Marti's Store which he owned with his father and brother. Martin's Store is accessible by a short walkway from Mountain Lake, the site of the former Hotel, which was torn down in 1967.

She splits her time between homes in Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

ok my stars may be unfairly low but that is because I am so uninterested in horse racing that I found this entire story/mystery just a bit boring. However I enjoyed Plant hiring a hermit - very funny.

Also I am just really annoyed that none -NONE of the questions from the previous one - The BLue Last were answered. I repeat ...NONE.
This begins right when the Blue Last ends - Jury is in the hospital recovering from being shot by Mickey. Is there a trial? Is Mickey dead yet (or did he shoot himself after shooting Jury- it wasn't clear) - Benny, Gemma, Liza ....all still unanswered. It just pissed me off.

[Julie Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am actually rereading several Martha Grimes (Richard Jury series). If you are a fan of the english mystery and eccentric English characters you will really enjoy these.

[Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

like Grimes' characters - she really fleshes them out. And, because I love horses and horseracing, I was looking forward to loving this one as well, but Grimes obviously didn't do her research on this! She could at least have read Dick Francis to get stuff right, but to have a champion jockey win the English Derby (flat) and also win the Grand National (steeplechase) is just plain stupid....and she had her horses doing it as well. And then there was the part where the kid put the bridal and saddle on the horse....... ouch!

[Ken · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'd read a couple of her other books, and would have given them two stars for "okay". The Dirty Duck was so poor I dropped it. After reading The Grave Maurice, I'll never look at one of Grimes' books again.

I won't give away the specifics of the ending because that's something one normally just doesn't do. But spoiling the plot of this book would be a service to the mystery-reading public.

The real point of the book is to publicize a pet cause of Grimes's (pet as in PETA, though the abuse is reprehensible enough), and Grimes does a 180 on the conventions and on literary integrity, grafting a deep noir ending onto the updated English country mystery that the reader was looking for. The reader, however, is not in the least prepared for this. On the contrary, Grimes spends the bulk of the book carefully setting the reader up, and then delivers an exceptionally vicious kick in the crotch, in a scene that is milked for every drop of unpleasantness that can be wrung from it. Chandler never did anything like this to his readers, and the readers of James Crumley (for instance) know what to expect and expect to see it handled with the integrity and artistry the noir subgenre deserves.

In the end, what Grimes has done in this book is just a sophomoric trick. (I know, because I thought well of this sort of trick as a sophomore--high-school, not college.) Grownups with their eyes open generally get their bellyful of this brand of nastiness from history, the daily news, and often enough in their daily lives. They don't need to be told it's out there everywhere. Mention a horror that they haven't heard of before, and it fits right in with the scheme of things they're accustomed to. Least of all do they need to be told about the world from the one-dimensional perspective of a single-issue hysteric (and a minor issue at that). If they want it in their entertainment, there's good noir fiction out there--written from the perspective of a grownup with his eyes open.

[Marilyn Saul · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a disappointing book. It was extremely thin on plot and was much more a treatise on what Grimes learned about horse racing. Ok, good to have ALLLLL that information that was mostly inconsequential to the plot. I think Grimes was more interested in bringing the problem of Premarin to the attention of her readers - which was fine for the times, but now a moot point. The "mystery" was not only secondary but tertiary, and, quite frankly was confusing - though that may have been because I started speed-reading paragraphs and chapters that were obviously just filler. The whole plot could have been condensed into the last 40 pages. I'm disappointed because I was only recently introduced to Grimes through her first Jury book. I'm not likely to pursue any more of her Jury writings that are, say, more than five years beyond the publication of her first.

[Deanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book started well. It lost steam for me thereafter, and the horse racing context was less interesting than I expected. It was otherwise a pretty good read and mystery.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why write a book heavily centred on horses, if you know nothing about them? (e.g. you think you "shake the reins" to make them "go".) Not impressed.

[Craig Monson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Martha Grimes mystery—rather late in the game, apparently: well over a dozen others await. It was not a book that I couldn’t put down, though I was always happy to pick it up. The plot is a bit quirky and tangled, with the occasional excursus, presumably as an excuse to (re)introduce a stable of eccentric characters, likely already familiar to followers of the Richard Jury series, as Brits once again make fun of each other and themselves. Amusement at wittily (even generously) drawn characterizations in these sequences can eclipse readerly confusion about why exactly we’ve ended up amidst the clash of the hunting set in their pinks and the animal rights set. When the horses occasionally comment (in italic) early on, readers will either smile or roll their eyes. (For a time I was expecting Aqueduct to admit having intentionally caused a certain rider’s fall, but we’re not talking Mr Ed.) Dick Francis enthusiasts will presumably be right at home, but less equestrian readers shouldn’t be overwhelmed by all the horse talk. (It’s arguably less perplexing than some of the holdovers from previous volumes in the series.) Judging from book number 18, Grimes promises plots sufficiently engaging to keep one coming back, but especially, sympathetically drawn characters whom one would be happy to encounter once again.

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out as a sort of homage to Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, sometimes referred to as the best mystery ever written. Like the protagonist in that book, we find Superintendent Richard Jury laid up in a hospital bed and unable to pursue his usual occupation. He needs distraction. Sergeant Wiggins brings him Tey's book to read and his doctor provides him with a much more current mystery.

When last we saw Jury (in The Blue Last) he was lying grievously wounded on a dock. He was found there by a dog and his boy and by his friend Melrose Plant. His life was saved and now he's in recovery, soon to be released. But in the meantime, his mind needs something to occupy it.

His surgeon catches his interest with a mystery from his own life. Two years earlier, his fifteen-year-old daughter had vanished without a trace along with a champion thoroughbred that she was tending at her grandfather's stud farm. Both the horse and the girl disappeared from the barn one night and no one has seen them since.

Jury reviews the known facts of the case and determines to investigate. He's not cleared to return to duty and so he will have some time to look into the matter unofficially.

While still in the hospital, he sends his friend Plant to the stud farm to reconnoiter the place and find out what he can. Melrose arrives to find the local police already there. The body of a woman has been found on one of the training tracks. Everyone at the farm claims not to recognize the woman. How did she happen to end up on that track?

Plant's excuse for going to the farm in the first place is to pretend that he's interested in buying a horse. As these things usually turn out when Melrose Plant is involved, he winds up actually buying a horse. A very expensive stallion.

Once Jury is released from the hospital, he heads to Northampton to convalesce at Plant's home and then he begins his own investigation into the girl's disappearance. Could it somehow be related to the murder of the woman who was found on the training track? There are few clues and Jury finds that he must attempt to piece together tiny bits of information and connections in order to try to get a clear picture of what has happened.

Martha Grimes is up to one of her usual twisting and turning plots in this book. It becomes a rather dark story as we get further into it, involving the abuse of the abducted girl and the abuse of pregnant mares kept for the production of their urine that is used in making the hormone replacement therapy drug Premarin. Grimes paints an all too vivid picture of the lives of the poor mares that are kept tied up and without a chance to exercise, their every drop of urine collected. The reader intuits that this is not going to end happily. And it doesn't.

But (spoiler alert) at least the mares survive and move on to green pastures.

[Mary Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

This was actually a re-read. I used to be a huge Martha Grimes fan and have read all but her last two books; I picked this up out of nostalgia. In general, I did not enjoy the books after Richard Jury was shot as much as the earlier ones. When this one opens, he is in the hospital recovering, and his friend Melrose Plant brings him a mystery to occupy his time: the disappearance of his surgeon's daughter two years before.

My main pleasure in Grimes's books came from her characters, both the "regulars" (and by the time this book was written, there are more than a dozen) and those who appear in one book only. At her best, she is able to convey much of a personality with just a few lines. But by the time she wrote this 18th entry in the Jury series, she was relying on the reader's history with her regulars to carry them along and more that a few of the new characters are either ciphers or inconsistently drawn.

Several things bothered me about this book. The first is the convoluted denouement. The plot relies on multiple coincidences worthy of Dickens and tragedies pile up one on another as the book rushes to its conclusion, perhaps to create such a rush of emotion in the reader that she is less troubled by the solution to the puzzles Grimes has created.

The second, related to the first, is the improbable way characters act. Most striking is the behavior of the man who perpetrated the principal crimes: the kidnapping and repeated rape of the doctor's daughter who was held for two years before she escaped. We learn that she was kidnapped as an act of revenge against her father, the surgeon, by the father of a young girl who'd died during surgery. OK, but what was the end game for the kidnapper? Did he intend to keep her captive forever? If so, why was she so loosely guarded? And when she escaped, none of her captors seemed to be concerned that she might identify them, though she was held less than two miles from her home.

But what really diminished the pleasure of the reading experience for me was this: the response of so many adult men to the character of a teenage girl (herself rather improbable). Her stepbrother, a man in his thirties, is besotted with her; Jury and Melrose Plant are dumbstruck and enchanted just by seeing her picture. I don't remember having the same reaction on my first reading; perhaps the multiple revelations of the sexual abuse of teenagers - by coaches, religious leaders, teachers, etc. - shaped my response. In retrospect, it made the whole book seem a little creepy.

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book starts out good with a real mystery about a young girl who disappeared nearly two years before. Many characters from earlier Richard Jury books show up, adding nothing to the solution, but not really detracting from the story either (If this type of thing bothers you, I assume that you gave up on Martha Grimes books long ago.) The solution is somewhat telegraphed many pages in advance, and parts of the story are terrible and other parts are not believable. Two stars, a generous two stars.

[Annie Goldman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't often leave reviews - mainly because the books I read are older and many people have already - but I'm inclined to on this book. This was one of the most difficult books to read! The content was all over the place, the terminology was difficult to follow (I'm not British) and there are so many characters that it's hard to keep up!

I picked up the book because I was interested in the content, but it was a difficult read.

[Elizabeth Frey-Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jury has turned into a sniggering, mean old man, who screws witnesses because he can? Ugh. And Melrose has become a drunk buffoon.

I am trying so hard to make it through this series, because the first ones were pretty good, and I hear this good-story desert in the middle of the series doesn’t last forever, but seriously, this was awful.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jury is in the hospital. He's going crazy with the inactivity. He decides to work on a cold case, the missing daughter of his doctor. This leads him into the race horse world, and into quite simmer twists and turns. As usual, great characterization and plot.

[Nan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like Richard Jury books but this is not one of my favorites

[Cyanemi · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best ones. This had a lot of intrigue, passions and twists. Horses and animal rights were in the forefront. I loved this book.

[Chazzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Jury is laid up in hospital, recovering from some serious wounds. Melrose Plant and Sargeant Wiggins have been frequent visitors. In an effort to give Jury something to occupy his mind, Wiggins gives him a copy of “The Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey. Wiggins had been given the book by Plant when Wiggins was in hospital. The main character of the book is in a situation similar to Jury’s. The second plot to the book is the mystery concerning Richard the Third and the princes who were kept in the tower and mysteriously disappeared. Wiggins gesture is well meant, but Jury is not a mystery reader.

To distract Jury, Plant tells him of a conversation he overheard at the Grave Maurice, across the street from the hospital.

Plant sits to the bar and overhears two women talking. They were discussing about someone named Ryder and that he was a “poor sod” as his daughter had disappeared about two years ago. Then a comment was made about a brother and he’d been killed. Only bits and pieces, but it interests Plant. And it turns out Jury’s doctor is the “poor sod” and asks if Jury would look into the matter “unofficially.”

Jury is released from hospital with instructions to rest, but he immediately starts investigating. The case is stone cold, but little by little Jury gets bits and pieces, tying them together.

It turns out the girl’s disappearance isn’t the only mystery. There is the death of the doctor’s brother during a race in Paris and the mysterious goings on at a nearby stud farm. Somehow they seem related.

This is not a book to race through. The clues are not always obvious and neither are the connections.

[Pamela Mclaren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Jury is supposed to be recuperating from a shooting but the Scotland Yard detective is chaffing at the bit. So his friend Melrose Plant tells him about two women he sees at The Grave Maurice. Their conversation regards Nell Ryder, disappeared nearly two years ago from her grandfather's stud farm in Cambridgeshire and whose father happens to be Jury's surgeon.

The tidbits Plant shares intrigues Jury, who as soon as he is released from hospital, inserts himself into the case and the stalled investigation.

Then there is the mystery woman who is found dead on the farm's race track. Who is she and is her murder related to the girl's disappearance?

And we, the readers are drawn in by the mystery of what has happened to this girl, who if still alive would be 17 years old. Where has she been, what happened and why.

Martha Grimes gives readers a down-to-earth detective, with slightly wacky friends (that so far has not irritated me like often happens in other books) and cases that intrigue and surprise at every turn. The books are fun to read and always a joy to read.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Jury is in hospital recovering from three bullet wounds from his last case when Melrose Plant overhears a conversation in the bar (The Grave Maurice) across from the hospital about Jury's doctor. It seems the doctor's 15-year-old daughter, Nell Ryder, went missing two years earlier along with one of the family's thoroughbred horses.

Jury sends Plant out to the Ryder farm pretending to be interested in horses (Melrose being Melrose actually buys one). He learns about the doctor's brother, Dan, a famous jockey who died about three years ago in a race. And a woman has been found dead on the training track just before he gets there.

Jury once released from hospital goes on the trail of the missing girl. Finds her cousin, Maurice, the jockey's son is hiding something. The grandfather's stepson, Vernon, is who Nell turns to when she escapes because she feels he can help her save the mares where she was being held and raped. She stays for the horses -- they are kept pregnant and in tiny spaces for their urine which makes a woman's menopause drug, premarin.

So Roy Diamond, another horse person, had taken Nell and Aqueduct because he blamed the doctor for the death of his daughter. He tricked Maurice into helping by saying his dad, Dan, wanted to speak with him. Dan alive and going to do an insurance fiddle with second wife. She was the dead woman killed by Dan's obsessive lover, Sara. Nell is shot by Roy Diamond when she goes to confront him. Maurice had died in a jumping accident.

Ends with Jury visiting Gemma from last book.

Plant hires hermit to scare off Agatha. Works but now he's stuck with a hermit.

Good, but needed more of the Plant levity.

[Morgen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immediate follow up to The Blue Last. Jury is recuperating from his shooting at the end of that book, and learns that his surgeon's daughter disappeared nearly 2 years ago. With the help of Melrose Plant he decides to investigate to keep his mind occupied. The case becomes more complex when a woman is murdered at the same track the daughter was abducted from.

[Merrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite in the Jury series.

[Penelope · Rating 3 out of 5]

MY RATING GUIDE: 3 Stars. I read reviews before beginning a new book, especially in this series as the content can varying greatly between books. A GRAVE MAURICE, bk18 continues from the disappointing cliffhanger in the previous book and is another somber book. It involves shady dealings in the production of certain experimental pharmaceutical products, the mistreatment of horses, abduction, death and rape. I read several lighter books during my reading of A GRAVE MAURICE, to lighten my overall reading experience. This is my second time reading through this series. Last time AGM hadn’t yet been published.

1= dnf/What was that?; 2= Nope; not for me; 3) THE MYSTERY WAS OKAY BUT THE CONTENT DEPRESSING; 3.5= I enjoyed it; 4= I liked it a lot; 5= I Loved this; it was great! (I SELDOM give 5 Stars).

A GRAVE MAURICE, Jan, 1995 ~
The previous book, THE BLUE LAST, ended on a cliff-hanger with (MC)Scotland Yard, Criminal Investigation Division Superintendent Jury gravely wounded, lying in the Royal London Hospital. A GRAVE MAURICE picks up 36 hours later with Jury still in the hospital recovery from his multiple gun shot wounds. Noticing that Jury is getting antsy during his recovery, his surgeon shares the tragic loss, and most likely abduction, of his own 15yr old daughter which occurred 20mos earlier. Dr Ryder asks Jury if he might put his mind to discovering the present whereabouts of his missing daughter.

In addition, partial closure to the previous book, THE BLUE LAST, also occurs. (Why the previous cliffhanger rather than a decent ending in TBL? The 2 bks actually have very little overlap) ???

Quote ~
> “We make these minute revisions, look at it from a slightly different angle: that pond, that bench there or not, whatever it was that made it more desirable, it’s loss more bitter. Memories plague causes unnecessary suffering”. Melrose Plant to CID Jury

> About Jury’s shooting: Diane said, “I could have warned you that night was fraught with danger.”
“Oh, it was fraught alright. So why didn’t you? Warn me, I mean?”
“You didn’t ask me, did you?”
Jury laughed. “I guess I didn’t.”

> “Jury slid a few inches down his seat. “‘I love this car.’”
Melrose, “You can’t have it.”

> “You really are behaving peculiar. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately.” Carole-anne Palutski
He smiled. “Just three bullets.” Superintendent Jury

Comments ~
I am currently rereading this series. Overall, I find it incredibly inconsistent. I have truly enjoyed certain titles (bks1-3, 5-7, 11, 24, 25) - the character development & interaction, certain plots and the occasional humor - but other titles, not so much (the darkest, or those with terrible endings or overfilled with disjointed ramblings, or non-endings or cliffhangers - particularly bk8, 17, 20&21 ). Each book can either be quite entertaining or a total waste of time. ;/

1) A GRAVE MAURICE, bk18 of 25 in Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury Mystery series, was published in 2002. Certain comments indicate the passage of time (technology, culture) but otherwise the story has held up quite well.
2) I wouldn’t recommend reading A GRAVE MAURICE as a standalone book or before reading the earlier books (particularly the previous book, THE BLUE LAST which ends in a cliff hanger picked up in A GRAVE MAURICE).
3) This series contains a sizable secondary cast of characters who surround and support each new mystery. The characters’ antics are seldom understandable but less so if the reader hasn’t been introduced to them from the beginning. The regular, secondary cast of characters (both from Long Piddleton and from Jury’s current neighborhood again played either important or fleeting roles in A GRAVE MAIRICE. (As in previous books, Melrose Plant plays a major role).
4) The Richard Jury mysteries are not Cozy Mysteries nor do they end with HEAs - Richard Jury’s life is simply too complicated and the overall tone of the series too somber. I continue reading Grimes’ novels mainly because I enjoy the well developed and friendly personal relationships between the characters and occasional humor. I will quit reading the series (again) when I feel the overall dark tone overshadows everything else. Although I keep hoping Jury and Plant will get their personal lives sorted out, and that Jury will get more satisfaction in his career, so there might be joy somewhere in these books- with this author, it’s not likely.
5) Grimes frequently features children in her novels, as does AGM. One reviewer stated they thought it the darkest book up to this point. A number of previous books have been quite dark, and I feel AGM falls into that category. This is a book which the reader best not get too attached to any particular character.
6) IMO, the Superintendent Richard Jury novels sit somewhere between Contemporary British Mysteries and Grisly Thrillers - depending on the particular title. Often a tone of weariness, nostalgia and perhaps a sense of noire and/or despair leaks through - with pockets of humor but without much joy or lasting contentment. I would never consider these Cozy reads.
7) The ending of AGM left me thinking about the lack of Justice in the world. Specifically, ‘how big money for fancy attorneys can set criminals free’, ‘how untouchable pharmaceutical companies can produce questionable drugs and products through dubious means, while endangering how many lives of those who ingest those products, and get away with it!’, and the list goes on. The ending of A GRAVE MAURICE left me with a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness and a relief I was finally done with it. Read AGM forewarned.
8) The Jury series is quite popular with certain readers. I recommend it to those who enjoy:
> British Mysteries.
> Seasoned characters.
> An abundance of colorful & eccentric secondary characters (like a village or two).
> Character-driven novels.
> Police Procedurals.
> Mysteries/Novels not entirely focused on the case alone.
> Mysteries/Novels with dollops of humor mixed in with content, characters, irrelevant data and descriptions.
> Novels that often drift off into unusual lines of thinking which occasionally help solve the case or build character background (such as confusing dreams, forgotten memories, day dreams, “talking dogs, dolls or horses” each with the unique ability to solve problems/bk 17, 18, etc).
> Novels generally not ending in HEAs (readers who accept the bad with the good, as irl).
> Novels occasionally not ending at all (bk8) or not ending until a second or third title - cliffhangers (bks 17>18, bks 20>21>22).

I have reviewed each book separately (mentioning those that fell into the non-ending or particularly dark categories).

*READER CAUTIONS ~ possible Trigger Warning below.
PROFANITY - Yes. Both blasphemy & strong language is used.
VIOLENCE - Yes. This is a murder mystery, definitely not Cozy, yet descriptions do not dwell on dark or graphic content.
*Repeated past rape of a minor is mentioned.
SEXUAL SITUATIONS - Yes. But quickly fades to black.

[Kyrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The background banter between characters was great. So were some of the weird background events, like Melrose hiring a hermit.
The actual plot, well, it was interesting, but buried in a lot of info about horse racing, hunting, animal rights, and mostly the manufacturing of Premarin and other menopause drugs. I'm guessing the author would be pleased that I will probably never take Premarin after reading this book. Unfortunately, I lost the thread of the plot often while going down these rabbit trails. I'm still not clear on what will bring the ultimate baddie to justice. I guess that's realism - the police have to wonder if the court system will see things the way they do?

[Alan Marchant · Rating 2 out of 5]

one foot in the grave Maurice

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."

[✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually enjoy Richard Jury mysteries but this one just didn't do it for me. I didn't find any of the main characters likeable at all and just didn't know what to make of them. There are the usual appearances by Aunt Agatha, Trueblood, Vivian etc but it did little to compensate the poor overall characterization. I wasn't aware before reading the book that the story revolved around horses and horseracing, which certainly didn't help, since these are two subjects I've never been interested in.

[Kirsten Schlewitz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wondered how long it would take Grimes to reach the standard reasons for crime, murder and mayhem: rape, pedophilia, etc. Answer? 18 Jury books. I'm disappointed she went this route, and the story didn't make up for the turn down this path.

[Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finally finished! I found that I could put this book down and not read it for a week at the time. I didn't buy into the characters, and there were too many characters that didn't add anything to the story. By the end of the book I didn't care who was murdered or whom the killer was.

[Andrea Elkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've got to stop reading Jury novels. He's not the character I thought he was, and I just don't have it in me to try so hard to read between the lines with every utterance. This book exhausted me rather than exhilarated me. Plus (spoiler!) there's no happy ending.

[Jo Sternberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a little darker but still really good

[J Y · Rating 1 out of 5]

just wasn't worth the effort