Biting the Moon

Andi Oliver #1

by Martha Grimes

Escaping into the nearby mountains from the mysterious man who had abducted her, a young amnesiac joins forces with fourteen-year-old Mary Dark Hope to find and confront the evil man she calls "Daddy"--before he can find her first. 50,000 first printing. Lit Guild Alt. Mystery Guild Main. Tour.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, Contemporary

301 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

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

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning: This book contains graphic animal cruelty and has little to no resolution at the end.
Grimes' main character is an amnesiac who likes to rescue animals. She and her new friend go on a journey to figure out what happened to her and why she can't remember it. The trip is suspenseful, but it's a little bit mystifying how two girls, neither of whom have a drivers' license or even know how to drive, can make it from Santa Fe to the middle of Idaho without getting pulled over.
I found myself rushing through to find out what has happened, but I think I might have missed something because lots of it didn't make sense. I really liked Grimes' Hotel Paradise, but everything I've read by her since then hasn't been as entertaining. This book does have a sequel, though, so hopefully there will be some resolution there.

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was this book written for young adults? Was this book written for the ADHD reader?

The story line jumped all over the place! The story begins with a young girl with amnesia living in the wild saving small animals caught in leg-hold traps. She then befriends a 14 year old orphan girl who is financially well off. Good thing the money was good...the girls take off on a road trip like Thelma and Louise. They just happen across white water river rafting, dog fighting, canned hunts, good guys, bad guys, etc.

After killing the worst of the bad guys in cold blood, the main character disappears...as in fades out completely. The world rights itself and the main character is out of the picture. The book ends.

If cruelty to animals is the theme of this book I think it got lost in the story or lack thereof.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acme or nadir, it depends on your taste, but in any case this is the extreme of one of Grimes' depressing and squalid phases. If you've read her Jury series you probably noticed this: some of the books are quite cheery and witty, then you'll get a few that are very sad and have horrible abuses of children, animals, or emotionally vulnerable individuals. This manages to include all of those tropes, plus rape, orphans, and amnesia. I actually found the dog-fighting the most upsetting. It is well written, but -- don't say I didn't warn you.

[Janet Mahlum · Rating 1 out of 5]

I listened to this book on CD so couldn't skim over the really horrible parts. I found this book gruesome, implausible, inaccurate, and totally unenjoyable, not to mention stupid. I listened to the end because I had to know how it ended. I really think it was a waste of time. I'm sort of glad I do know the ending, but am not the least bit interested in any more in this series or by this author.

[Joyce · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being a fan of Richard Jury mysteries, I thought I’d enjoy anything written by Martha Grimes; not so. A young girl wakes up in an inn near Santa Fe with amnesia and knows she should get away from the man who has told the owner that he’s her daddy. She’s thinks she’s about seventeen years old and manages to survive a winter in the wilderness, rescuing coyotes from illegal traps. Then she’s befriended by Mary, a 14-year-old girl, who has been orphaned with the death of her parents and sister, but is being cared for by a naive Indian lady. Mary just happens to have plenty of money and a car, so even though neither of them has a driver’s license, and the two teenagers take off for a town in Idaho where “Andi” believes she can find her abductor and maybe her own identity. They are befriended by kind adults along their way, but also run into some very unscrupulous characters involved in illegal dog fights and the illegal hunting and killing of big game animals. The girls are likeable as main characters, but the plot is ridiculous. It did keep me turning the pages, but only to see how it would end. And even that wasn’t conclusive.

[Leslie Bulion]

I have been a Martha Grimes fan for a long time, after reading The End of the Pier, Hotel Paradise, and Belle Ruin. In this book, I don't know why the villain had to have a hand in every evil thing going on in the western US except maybe being the second unabomber. The first and foremost thing we think he did was heinous enough. After that, the plot seems to become one coincidence after another in some pretty wide open country. Secondary characters' reactions to the villain were hard for me to buy, as well. I'm going to read the sequel, though, to see how it plays out because I do like this author.

[Kwoomac · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars because I loved some of these characters so much. You really need to suspend your feelings of disbelief. Two girls, ages 14 and probably 16, take off on a road trip to track down the guy who kidnapped Andi, the 16-year-old girl. Neither girl has their license but they manage to drive over 800 miles from Sante Fe to Idaho Falls. Andi can bluff her way through any situation, including going white water rafting on a level 4 river with no, that's right, zero experience. And she has amnesia. So, like I said, just don't think too hard.

The girls run into lots of bad people doing bad things. Andi is heartbreaking in her desperate attempt to find out who she really is. At the same time, you just have to love her tenacious outlook on things. This girl could save the world if she put her mind to it. It's fun to watch 14-year-old Mary learn from Andi that she has some power over the things in her life, in spite of her frustration with Andi's techniques. Lots of other characters to steal your heart. And creepy bad guys.

Before this, I had only read Grimes' Richard Jury series, which takes place in England. I found it surprising that she could so easily create a story in the southwest U.S.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had previously read Dakota, which I really enjoyed. But when I heard there was a prequel I thought, maybe now we will find out who Andi is and where she came from. But, no that didn't really happen. There were a lot of far fetched things, but the author still leaves you hanging about what Andi's life was like before her amnesia. A little disappointed.

[Wanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story about a teenager who suddenly wakes up in a bed and breakfast in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has no knowledge who she is or how she arrived at the inn. With little to aid her in discovering her past beyond a backpack labeled with the initials A.O., she decides to name herself Andi Olivier.

She meets up with another teenage girl and they set out to track down Andi's identity.

The plot is a bit far fetched requiring great leaps of the imagination. You must accept some events. Though the actual likelihood two teenage girls who don't drive can get from Santa Fe to Utah without incident, meet the people they meet, have the conversations they have, involve themselves in a variety of activities, and never get questioned is a little too much.

Entertaining read though.

[Cindy (BKind2Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am of 2 minds on this novel. On one hand, it was beautiful writing. It evokes the austere beauty of the West (mostly set in New Mexico and Idaho). The main character, Andi Oliver, was someone I cared about. She wakes up one morning in a bed-and-breakfast without her memory of who she is and forges her own identity. She makes up her name based on initials (AO) found on a bag. She is also on the run from a man called "Daddy" - but is he? However, this novel was also extremely frustrating. The action slowed to a crawl at times and the conclusion was totally unsatisfying. Overall, it was good, but I kept expecting more.

[Miriam Boucher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Somehow I missed all of the reviews of this book because if I had seen them, I never would have read it. Yes, there is potential abuse of an amnesiac fourteen year old, disabled boy and at least two adult women. Yes, there is animal abuse, neglect and "canned hunts" (the endangered species is in a cage and shot for the trophy). There is a dog fight and additional animal cruelty (if you love kittens, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK). There are a lot of plot holes (the bad guy finds "Andi" in her cabin but it's never explained how). One of my many questions is: Has the author ever even seen snow? I don't know much about snowshoeing, but I live in New England and I do know about snow. When the snow got deep enough, my brother used to put on his snowshoes and snowshoe on the swamp (excuse me "protected wetland"). I can tell you one thing - he left tracks. When Andi snowshoed to and from the traps she would have left tracks. When the trapper found that his trap was empty he would have had no difficulty following those tracks back to Andi's cabin and pointing out to her "the error of her ways". In addition, Andi comes back to the cabin and thinks that someone has been there. We're back to tracks again. The tracks of someone walking through the snow and someone snowshoeing are very different. It would have been obvious that some one had been there. Even if "Daddy" had come on snow shoes, the tracks would have come from a different location, been of a different length, depth and would appear different. The rest of the improbabilities mount from there. For instance, the girls go on a rafting trip for experienced rafters having had no experience whatsoever. I'm amazed they survived. I have no interest in reading the second book of the series and will probably abandon any other books by this author at an earlier stage. I did complete the book (skimming most of the second half) because I was under the impression that I was the first reviewer and felt an obligation to finish the book to write a compressive review. I'll be more careful next time.

[Avid Series Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Biting the Moon by Martha Grimes is the first book of the Andi Oliver mystery series set in contemporary New Mexico and Idaho. A teen wakes in a strange hotel room. She doesn't know who she is or how she got there. She sees a backpack with initials A.O., decides to call herself "Andi". A man's clothing is in the room. When the hotel manager in the breakfast room tells her "Daddy" will return soon, she escapes.

Hiding out in the mountains, she releases animals from leghold traps. Venturing into town to steal first aid supplies and painkiller, she meets young teen Mary Dark Hope. Strong-willed Andi coerces Mary to go on a far-fetched road trip. Rather than ask police for help identifying herself and learning what happened, stubborn Andi insists on finding her abductor. Andi bluffs her way into and through events, single-mindedly pursuing her goal. Her motto: "Pretend confidence, it doesn't matter if you don't feel it."

The prose is wonderful. Great descriptions of beautiful scenery and exciting river rafting, plus several interesting sympathetic characters they meet as they travel from Santa Fe to Salmon, Idaho. Plenty of introspection by Mary seems atypical of a 14-year-old. As she meets Reuel: "He looked like a man made for something he either hadn't found yet or had found and didn't much like." About a river rafter: "Mary supposed Honey had been fifteen or twenty pounds overweight all of her middle-aged life and was always apologizing for it."

Andi finds her abductor. She bluffs her way onto a rafting trip to learn more about him. Sees how his charm allows him to get away with many crimes. Watches him commit murder disguised as an accident. After a deadly confrontation, Andi disappears. Mary steps up to the challenge: "what would Andi do?"

Be warned. The teens witness dangerous animal cruelty events that are disturbing to read. Coyote pups in the woods, a "canned hunt" and dogfights. Recurring theme: "Now you know." Not a comfort read!

[Mary R · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I like the idea of the story and the first fourth of the book was pretty good. Beautiful descriptions.

However the animal cruelty was too descriptive for me. I wish there had been some kind of warning about that. I didn't think a book about teenage girls would give me nightmares......

I think there was a lot of potential here, but the book ends with essentially no resolution and way too many loose ends.

Who murdered Mary's sister? Why did nobody hesitate to rent hotel rooms to teenage girls in the middle of nowhere? Did they pay for everything in cash? How is it that both of these girls ended up being orphans? Why do we need to know that Mary had a pet coyote if we never actually get to see it? Did the people at the cabin come back and find out someone had been living there for months? Who was putting out all of those traps that was catching coyotes? Also if there were so many traps out there to catch the coyotes how is it that not once a hunter came across andi?? Why did Harry pick her up again when he saw her on the side of the road? And when she said an obvious lie about her family coming and picking her up at the trailhead what did he think?

I honestly wish I had not read this book

[Nick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was tricked by a synopsis that sounded intriguing... what I got was a novel that was beyond inconceivable and felt hurriedly written (or at least poorly thought out). The general premise was interesting--- “Girl with amnesia begins cross country trek to solve the mystery of who she is and what has happened to her!” What you actually get, is a bizarre far fetched story full of inconceivable cross-country coincidences that are somehow intertwined, but not actually all that intertwined… outside of the fact they are contained within the same novel. Perplexed how all these seemingly unrelated story lines would end up connecting— I was left never fully grasping the point of many of these events/characters—and few, if any, of the “mysteries” received any real resolution by novels end. Familiar with the authors name, I had never read one of her books until now… and I don’t see myself repeating that lapse in judgment anytime in the future.

If a reader is seeking a story that reads like a mediocre Lifetime movie script, then they will probably give this poorly written novel 5 stars. I, however, expect more.

[Jeff Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect from Martha Grimes' "Biting the Moon" having only read her Richard Jury books and "Cold Flat Junction" which was so long ago I've what it was about. Once I started the book I put away any reservations and found the story very enjoyable. The mysterious Andi Olivier who wakes up in an hotel, in Santa Fe with no memory, $600 and a gun with a man known only as "Daddy". Andi, however was made of stern stuff escaping and working her way to the New Mexico's Sandia Mountains where she creates a new identity and finds a companion in 13-year-old Mark Dark Hope. At this point Andi as enough information to go and search for the mysterious "Daddy" before he finds her. What enfolds is a wonderful road, and sometimes depressing, trip in which the two friends travel through Idaho before reaching North Dakota to finally confront "Daddy". I really good read in which animals come out of it better than than humanity.

[Sandra Strange · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess this is the way "contemporary" mysteries go--a kind of anticlimactic denouement that leaves the reader let down. The basic situation is intriguing, as one of the protagonists tries to fill in time missing from her memory and recapture her identity, while the other, a fashionably independent early teenage girl, does most of the growing. In fact, the main theme of the novel is you cannot unsee or unexperience horrible sights and experiences. They affect you and who you are whether you are conscious of them or not. The two protagonists are engaging, and the sympathetic minor characters are well drawn, as are the nasty villains of the piece. The plot builds to a violent climax, but the denouement is morally ambiguous, unsatisfying and just kind of peters out.

[Micky Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

An oddly written plot that draws you in and keeps you reading so much so that I can't wait to read the sequel to this book. You start out following the path of one character and her thoughts, but end with another. It was done in such a manner as to slowly slide you from one perspective to the other that you are well into the other character's perspective before you even realize the switch has taken place. The plot is an interesting mystery that seems to unwind, yet leaves you fully aware that the mystery has not been resolved. However, you do feel that the book has reached it's ending. I can't wait to see how the sequel treats the storyline and where the original character takes us.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing, especially since I really enjoyed the entire Martha Grimes Inspector Richard Jury mystery series. By way of contrast, the Jury series is full of witty, quirky characters, tongue-in-cheek humor, good story lines, and doesn't waste time in needless rumination and page-fillers. This novel featured completely unrealistic characters, too many "coincidences," adult reasoning beyond the capabilities of fifteen and seventeen year olds, and at least two tangential story lines that were very upsetting (arranged hunting of exotic animals and sexual predation of children). So, I do not recommend this book.

[Della · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the animal cruelty was not enjoyable, I did like the adventure style of the girls' travels. Another turn off was that Mary was not a believable character to me, in that she does not act her age. There were times that I had to stop and question whether I really did read that she was only 14 and not over 25. It also isn't believable that Andi could steal the drugs from the pharmacy and it isn't discovered. Mary isn't questioned since she has access to the store and there are no security cameras? I suppose the stolen drugs are not the primary focus of the story.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unbelievable, incomprehensible and totally forgettable. Ridiculous premise of young girl with no memory of her past hunting the anonymous guy she suspects kidnapped her all over the western US -- with no consequences at all. Bonus social responsibility subplot about "canned hunts" that has to be stapled into the story to make it relevant. Still, Martha Grimes is an undeniably addictive writer so I finished it and was mildly curious about what "Andi Oliver" might get up to next. If I'm stuck in a cabin with nothing else to read, I'd probably finish #2.

[Susan Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A suspenseful tale about two young ladies who go on a quest both in search of and to find the real reason for the amnesia of one of the young ladies. What they find is the heart of themselves and their inner strength to resolve wrongs. They meet with some very interesting people along the way, mostly good, all unique in different sorts of ways. Ms. Grimes has a compelling writing style, and this narrative made me want to keep turning the pages. This is not a mystery in the typical sense, but there is both mystery and suspense in the story.

Borrowed from the library in Berkley, MI.

[Jessica Rienzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting read. You see the back of it and think you are going to read about this girl who is kidnapped, but you find out that she is on a mission to figure out who kidnapped her. (SPOILER ALERT!: She finds the guy and she learns that she was in an orphanage and he found her on the road. A friend along with her is alone just like she is, not knowing who her family may be.)
I recommend reading it.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was really hard to put down so I went with the flow and managed to almost finish it while at the Clinic. The 2 teenage heroines bypassed the usual boring angst and scored really big on determination and innovation in spite of major challenges. Martha donated 2/3rds of this book's royalties to animal abuse organizations across the country. Cudos Martha! Now, is there an Andi Oliver(Olivier?) #2? Can't seem to find one but there are others of her books that beg to be read.

[Sheila Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly good story, but not what I expected from Martha Grimes. The characters have depth to them and the plot is interesting. However, there are so many questions throughout the story and at the end they don't get answered. Although this book is known to be a part of a series, I don't like it when major parts of the story are left untold and you're forced to buy the next book to find out what happens.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to make myself read this book only because I like Marta Grimes. But when I realized this was a very young teen acting like a woman in her 20's I had to keep myself from closing the book. I would actually recommend this book to young adults.

The chances this girl took never seemed to have a reason nor did it ever have a conclusion as to why she did it. I found there were to many animals harmed that never really carried the story forward. I would not recommend this book to animal lovers.

[Charlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took such a long time to read. I guess I never really understood the questions. Nor could believe the story. I generally like Martha Grimes and decided to read this one first when I got hold of Dakota. What next? Hmmm. (My reading notes say I read Biting the Moon years ago but it was never familiar this time around.)

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Martha Grimes' series featuring Richard Jury and his cronies. So I thought I'd try one of this author's other book. It began well, with an intriguing mystery, but the story just went on for too long, and took too many wrong turns. I was disappointed, but the writing was still good, and I did finish the book. Will go back to Richard Jury's tales now (if I haven't read them all).

[M Pacheco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book enough to read the sequel which was good, but wish there was another to answer the ongoing mystery. The subject matter is harsh and sadly reality in our world today. Animal abuse is difficult to think about, but if we don’t how can it ever be stopped. I think the stories raise awareness.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subject of this book is near and dear to my heart. I always feel so useless. How can these things be stopped? Giving money to organizations that seem to do absolutely nothing hasn't cut it.
I have no problem with a little vigilantism.

[Lawanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook read by Bernadette Dunn