The Right Jack

Sigrid Harald #4

by Margaret Maron

When a bomb explodes in a cribbage board, killing two men and seriously injuring her partner, Detective Sigrid Harald draws on her feminine intuition to discover cleverly disguised murderer

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Procedural, Mystery Thriller, New York, Adult, Police

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Born and raised in central North Carolina, Margaret Maron lived in Italy before returning to the USA. In addition to a collection of short stories she also authored numerous mystery novels.

Her works have been translated into seven languages her Bootlegger's Daughter, a Washington Post Bestseller won Edgar Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity awards.

She was a past president of Sisters in Crime and of the American Crime writers' league, and a director on the national board for Mystery Writers of America.

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Reviews

[Linda Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lt. Sigrid Harald becomes involved in an investigation of a bombing at a cribbage tournament held in a posh NY boutique hotel. Her partner, Detective Tilden, "Tillie," was competing in the tournament and was severely injured. Further complicating matters, Sigrid was badly hurt the same evening taking down a serial rapist. She wants to handle the investigation herself, but since a US Naval Commander is also among the injured, the Navy sends in an assistant. Her look into the lives of the dead and living victims sends her way back to the days of the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weathermen, an era that I remember very well.

All the elements that I have enjoyed in Margaret Maron's novels are on full display here; vivid characters, a sense of place and time, and a complicated heroine. It's clear Maron knows and loves NYC as she does her home state of North Carolina in the Deborah Knott series. The Sigrid Harald series was written back in the 80's and 90's and has not been updated. That means no DNA, nationwide databases, and communicating by landlines and payphones. Sigrid solves crime by pure digging and putting the pieces together. Somehow they remain timely, however. I was particularly struck by the following passage:

"When villages full of babies were carpet-bombed in Vietnam, where were the right-to-lifers? When babies starve all over Africa, when babies go hungry in our own rat-infested slums, where are all these so-called life-lovers? They care nothing about the quality of life once a baby's born, just that it gets born. They're so sure God's on their side!"

Some things never seem to change. But Sigrid herself is changing, building a support network and family of sorts, sometimes in spite of herself. I started reading the Sigrid Harald series quite a while back and somehow lost track of it but will be reading more. Especially since Maron has declared her most recent book, Take Out, also featuring Sigrid, to be her last. 4.5 Stars.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cribbage is a game played on ships where the rocking of the ship would disrupt large melds, so hands of four cards are easy to manage. I learned the game from an old sailor, so I immediately gravitated to this title. It turned out to be the peg on which I would hang my later love of Margaret Maron, all of whose books I read, particularly her North Carolina Judge Deborah Knott whose father was a bootlegger. But I digress...

Sigrid Harrod of the NYPD, a cool cucumber who rarely shows emotion, investigates a literally explosive cribbage tournament in which her partner is seriously injured. It takes place at a luxury hotel run by the publicly charming, but privately demanding and very Gallic Madame Lucienne Ronay, sarcastically and secretly known by her staff as "La Reine." And, mais oui, the lethal explosive is hidden inside a cribbage board. All Maron's talents are displayed here: snappy writing, full blown characters, and still relevant political commentary.

[Miriam Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've once again dived into Margaret Maron's series staring Sigrid Harald, LT in the NYPD. This mystery revolves around a bombing at a cribbage match in NYC. The mystery is convoluted with clues scattered throughout the investigation.

We see more of Harald's personality as her relationship with Nauman grows and becomes more comfortable. Each character has "more flesh" on the bones and to the personality. What a joy to read.

Scenes in NYC are like reminiscences of the City in the late 1980s. I can't wait to read the next installment.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this author's writing, and although I prefer her Deborah Knott series, I enjoy this series as well.

Sigrid Harald, the MC, is a lieutenant with the New York Police at a time when many still think that a woman is not fit for the job. Her character is complex but capable, as she proves over and over again. Since this book was published in - and presumably set in - the 1980s, there's nothing like DNA, cell phones or nationwide databases to help with the investigation, making it even harder than such a job would be today.

One character struck me as rather odd, and rather early on, that person was at the top of my list of suspects regarding the bombing. That turned out to be correct, but I was not able to figure out the motive.

I somehow lost track of this series, but plan to read more, hopefully relatively soon.

[Ruthiella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lieutenant Harald’s partner, Tillie, attends a cribbage tournament at an upscale New York City hotel where a bomb goes off, seriously injuring two and killing two others. Sigrid investigates with the assistance an extremely handsome US Navy Intelligence Officer, since one of the injured was a Commander. Sigrid correctly surmises that if they can determine of the four, which was the intended victim, they can work their way back to the perpetrator.

This is the fourth Sigrid Harald book and I liked it a lot. It is a little dated, naturally, but the plot was pretty good.

[Linda Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was #4 in an enjoyable mystery series. I am reading them in order and look forward to #5 in the series. The characters are interesting and fun, and the mysteries keep your attention to the end. It is interesting to see the development of the main character, Sigrid Harald. And BTW, the length of the books are generally around 200 pages - a nice break from the current trend of 400+ page books.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE RIGHT JACK by Margaret Maron
Cribbage tournament, memories of protests of the '60s and '70s, SDS and Weatherman, and joint investigation with the Navy. Distracted by side issues of style and relationships, and my enjoyment of the elegant writing, I did NOT see the ending coming, even though the clues were there. Wonderful book, and I'm looking forward to more of this series.

[Sara Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just the best!

Just finished my 4th Maron Sigrid book. Started her after rereading all of Rex Stout ' s Nero Wolfe. She is just as good. Hope some of you know what a compliment that is.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bomb goes off at a cribbage tournament and it becomes personal for Lt. Harald as one of her officers is caught in the explosion. Can they figure out what happened and why? And does it have anything to do with a past explosion?

Great writing and mystery. Great twist.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, classic who-dunnit. And a different character dynamic than previous books, with Sigrid working with a temporary partner. One of the best in this series.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good mystery with cribbage trivia mixed in. Apparently you cannot have a cribbage hand add up to 19 so a "19-hand" is one worth zero points. Definitely want to check out more books in this series.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written earlier mystery by an excellent and award-winning author.

[Gayle Stever · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are improving each one. Really enjoyed this one.

[Betty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where's the peg?

Cribbage. Sounds boring. SDS. Weathermen. Fancy hotels. Renown artist. The Navy.
Characters not stimulating. The most exciting is Roman, Lt. Sigrid Harald's roommate, and Lt. Harald' new haircut and " look".

Exploding cribbage boards, 2 dead 2 injured. Who dunnit? Enter the Navy. Russian retired explosive expert. Deceased famous history professor. Dead wealthy bon vivant. Additional murdered hotel server. Shot fatally fisherman guide. War objectors. Leona Helmsley wannabe and her assistant.

Shake well and solve.

Tillie is hospitalized, wakes from coma to review crime data. Lt. Harald has one arm in a sling from encounter (by accident) with serial rapist and accepts assignment to hotel bombing. The Navy sends own investigator due to injury of Commander (who handles sensitive data). Professor's death (from bomb) takes them back to the turbulent campus days of the 60's. Oscar Naumann is still man about town wooing Sigrid. That goalpost hasn't moved a bit.

Readers will learn more than they ever want to know about cribbage, makeovers, anise veal, campus revolutionaries, NY traffic, and good luck coins.

A few red herrings, and Sigrid solves the case.

A rather pedestrian cozy.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delicious present! Someone assembled all the books in this series (some original paperbacks, several new on-demand reprints, a couple of hardbacks). So I am reading this modern procedural with female lead set in NYC quite comfortably.

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A carefully placed bomb at a posh hotel explodes during a cribbage tournament, killing two people and severely wounding several others, including Sigrid's co-worker and friend Detective Tildon. Sigrid has lots of help and many hindrances while she tries to figure out not only how it happened, but exactly why - it's not at all clear which of the people close to the bomb was the intended victim.

A gentle loosening of Sigrid's frosty persona coupled with a bit more of the backstory into her father's suspicious death, made this even better than the wonderful earlier books in the series. Maron slowly peels away layers of Sigrid's personality, and as we come to know her a bit better Sigrid also comes to know herself rather better too. As Maron presents it, the process of her blooming is fascinating to watch - Sigrid is one of my favorite characters in mystery fiction, and her relationship with Oscar Neumann is extremely complex, and thus quite compelling.

Well-plotted, although the complex hotel setting with its timetable plot could have used a map, at least in the beginning. The characterizations are sometimes sketched in quite briefly, but always very clearly and with a touch of humour. A snappy pace, a tightly-twisted murder mystery, a posh setting, and a lead character (with entertaining satellites) that you love to follow as she works her way through both the plot and the minefields in her life - wonderful stuff! A first-rate "cosy" murder mystery without any sappiness or over-cute behaviors, written by a craftswoman who knows her business and keeps things moving briskly. One of my favorite series.

[Kilian Metcalf · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not keen on police procedurals, but I'm very keen on Maron's Deborah Knott series. Since the two series come together eventually, I am reading the Sigrid Harald books to get a sense of her character. Unlike the Knott books which are rich in characters and a sense of place, the Harald series are for the puzzle-loving readers who look for clues and want to winkle out the murderer before the big reveal. Me, I couldn't care less who killed whom, it's the characters who intrigue me. I'll keep reading, though, because both series are very well written.

Word I learned from reading this book:

rocaille: an 18th-century artistic or architectural style of decoration characterized by elaborate ornamentation with pebbles and shells, typical of grottos and fountains.

Sounds like a Kleenex box cover I once made at summer camp.

[M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book in my basement bookshelves--it's an old book and one I've read before. Good storyline, good characters, but it feels oddly anachronistic when the police detective protagonist has to find quarters for a pay phone or the police lab has to have an idea of whose fingerprint they have in order to send it in to the FBI database for a match. It's hard to remember how far we've come in just a short time with our cell phones and our CSI TV shows.

Nonetheless, Margaret Maron writes good books.

[Nell · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a treat! Excellent mystery. The killer was hiding in plain sight. Maron plays fair - all the clues are there. Tillie is injured off-duty so Sigrid takes a personal interest in this one. With her partner hospitalized, she is working with other detectives and there's more development of supporting characters. Her mother makes an appearance in this one and when Sigrid is injured in a separate incident she learns that her Captain was her father's partner on the force. That back story continues to unfold. Delightful developments in her personal life too as the former duckling finds her swan.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like all of Margaret Maron's Sigrid Harald mysteries. I wish there were more of them. They are all nicely crafted with interesting twists. The first mystery in this book is to figure out who is the intended victim of a bombing that interrupts a cribbage tournament. There are plenty of potentials for the 'right jack' from the attractive female Navy officer with a sensitive job and a Russian 'adopted Uncle' whose son is KGB and to a member of Sigrid's detective squad.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't warm up to Sigrid as much as I did Judge Deborah Knott in the author's other series. I've enjoyed the books, but Sigrid is just too stiff, almost socially inept and cold to be a character one can embrace. I definitely empathize with her; but she is still hard to really like. However, in this book she seems to be coming out of her shell, a bit. She seems a bit more human.

The mysteries themselves are good. I'm just struggling with the lead character.

[Dail Sams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sigrid investigates first a bombing, then a murder at a cribbage tournament in a deluxe hotel owned by the well-known and beautiful Lucienne Ronay. Her partner Tillie is injured in the explosion, along with a female naval officer, bringing in a navy investigator to help in Sigrid's case. Naumann has invited Sigrid to an event and her fellow navy investigator encourages her to visit a beauty parlor. Sigrid comes out a changed woman, knocking Naumann for a loop on their date.

[Crystal Toller · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Sigrid Harald is taking her mother to the airport, she is attacked by a knife-wielding rapist. The same night her partner Detective Tilden is severely injured when a bomb goes off at a cribbage tournament at the Hotel Maintenon. How Sigrid Harlad solves the mystery with the assistance of a Naval Intelligence Officer, her other officers, and Detective Tilden's help makes for an engrossing read. Another great addition to the series. Highly recommend this book and the series.

[Jacquelynn Fritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Homicide Detective Sigrid Harald must find who set a bomb at a cribbage tornament that killed two men and injured her partner and a Navy commander. First she must figure out who the bomb was suppose to kill. Good police proedural with some softening of Sigrid and she is learning more about her father's death.

[Ellen Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was interesting. Sigrid did most of her investigation without benefit of her partner Tillie's assistance. She did work with a naval officer, however. She also had a physical makeover with startling results and enhanced her appearance. She was able to piece together a complicated mystery, and we were able to learn more about her family background in this book.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#4 in the Sigrid Harald series. Finalist 1988 Macavity Award for Best Novel.

NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald series - the NYPD detective investigates a hotel bombing that put her partner, Detective Tildon, in the hospital at death's door. She first must identify the intended victim from a list of possibilities before she can begin searching for the perpetrator.

[Cynthia Grove · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have now read five of this series and, for me, this is the best one yet. It does help to have read the previous three although not essential.
Some of the writing is quite beautiful, enough to read a sentence three or four times before moving on just to savour the sentence structure, choice of words and the thought expressed.
As a story it is curious with some intriguing twists.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Sigrid and the way all the characters are drawn. the plot was so-so, but perhaps that's because the book was written awhile ago when the issues seemed more topical and important. I would read more written about Sigrid.

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mystery kept me guessing and the characters continual to evolve and intrigue.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Begin 11-27-09.

I am enjoying these more and more as the characters repeat and grow in their relationships to one another.