Product Description

Scotland Yard superintendent Richard Jury recruits a reluctant Melrose Plant to solve a case of mistaken identity revolving around London's last bomb site-where once stood a pub called the Blue Last.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #230582 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-27
• Released on: 2002-09-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 464 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780451410559
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury returns in a compelling novel, the 17th in Grimes's long-running series. Mickey Haggerty, Jury's old friend and colleague, is dying of cancer. So Jury can hardly refuse his request to look into what Mickey suspects is a 50-year-old case of switched identities. It surfaces when the last World War II bomb site in London is excavated for a new development, exposing the skeletal remains of a woman and infant. Mickey thinks the dead infant wasn't the baby of Kitty Riordan, Maisie Tynedale's nanny, as Kitty claimed, but was Maisie herself, the heiress to a brewery fortune. Did Kitty engineer the masquerade? And did Simon Croft, who was writing a book about London in the war years, discover it? When Croft is killed and his computer stolen, Jury sends his pal Melrose Plant to snoop around Tynedale Lodge disguised as a gardener. There he encounters a charming trio of amateurs: a homeless urchin and his extremely clever dog Sparky, and Gemma, a Tynedale ward whose mysterious background may hold the clue to Simon's murder as well as the still unsolved attempt on her young life.

As usual, Plant's world of eccentric friends and relatives is nicely evoked in a subplot that leads him on a surprising holiday in Florence, during which he acquires just enough knowledge of Italian Renaissance painting to pull off another disguise on Jury's behalf. Grimes weaves the threads of this rich tapestry together in a surprise ending that not even Grimes aficionados will sense coming. But it's an appropriate conclusion, given the book's brooding tone, established in the opening pages by a dying friend's obsession and sustained as the investigation forces Jury to confront his own haunted memories of the war. This is a solid page turner, marked by Grimes's unerring sense of pacing, respectful but provocative poking around in Jury's soul, and topnotch storytelling ability. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Reading Grimes's 16th Richard Jury novel (The Case Has Altered, etc.) is like watching a good movie on TV constantly interrupted by commercials. The author used to produce well-crafted, atmospheric works with delightful characters, but in recent years they've become unnecessarily long, overpopulated with minor characters (including Melrose), who take up a lot of time while contributing little to the crime at hand. The premise here is promising enough: the bodies of a woman and an infant turn up in the last unredeveloped bomb site in London (a pub called the Blue Last), victims of the final heavy German bombing of WWII. The woman, identified as Alexandra Tyndale, was the daughter of a wealthy brewing magnate; the infant was the daughter of Alexandra's nanny. Or was the infant, in fact, Alexandra's daughter, whom the nanny swapped with her own child to make her heir to the Tyndale fortune? It's all quite Victorian. Called in by his friend DCI Mickey Haggerty to help on the case, Richard Jury soon finds himself involved with a murder that could be related. Two children, Grimes's usual pathologically precocious tots, enter the action, as does Melrose with a whole subplot of his own. Because of this excess baggage, the reader must wait impatiently for the mystery to resume. A far-fetched solution will satisfy only the author's staunchest fans. 8-city author tour. (Sept. 10)Forecast: Despite the weakness of this title, Grimes is impervious to negative criticism; like others in the series, this one should hit bestseller charts.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
After a three-year hiatus, Grimes returns with her 17th Richard Jury mystery. Here, Jury's old friend Mickey Haggerty, a London cop, persuades him to investigate the murder of Simon Croft, perhaps killed because he was writing a book that would expose a 50-year-old deception, the substitution of the granddaughter of magnate Oliver Tynedale for the child of her nanny during the London blitz. When he goes to Tynedale Lodge, Jury finds a nine-year-old girl, Oliver's ward, who may also be a murder target but the evidence of miscreancy is inconclusive. There is an odd subplot that sends Jury's friends Melrose Plant and Marshall Trueblood to Italy in search of a painting's provenance, plus the usual assortment of eccentric characters and two winning children. The plot is as devious and convoluted as any Jury mystery, but readers who aren't Renaissance fans may find the side trip to Italy superfluous. For mystery and Jury aficionados. Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

what a waste of time
Boy, was I disappointed by this book. I can't recall ever reading another mystery where the author has shown such disdain for her readers. I would complain about all the loose ends but since Ms. Grimes didn't really bother to tie anything together it seems superfluous. I definitely agree with those that said she seemed to have reached her page limit and just ended the story abruptly. That alone would be frustrating but the rest of the book makes little sense either. I actually went back and reread large portions of the book to see if I had skipped something because the characters seem to leap to conclusions with little or no foundation -- no such luck, the book really doesn't make much sense. The usual contract between a mystery writer and her readers is that the clues are embedded within the story if only the reader is clever enough to discern them. In this case that contract is broken. The murderer's motive is highly implausible, major characters are suddenly dropped(what did happen to Benny and Gemma?), and Melrose suddenly has a burst of inspiration that comes from nowhere. The sad thing is that this book had a promising premise -- it explores memories of England in WWII -- and the series is one I have enjoyed in the past. Admittedly, it was already starting to seem a bit shopworn(does every mystery have to involve precocious children) but if the author is tired of writing the series (as her alter ego within the book hints) the honorable solution is to stop writing more Richard Jury books. Instead, Ms. Grimes has chosen to foist a half baked mess on an unwitting public -- I suppose she made more money this way but at the expense of any authorial pride.

Too many unanswered questions...
I am a great fan of the Richard Jury series but this one was very disappointing. There were too many unanswered questions, characters thrown in that were never explained, main characters suddenly acting out of character and an ambiguous ending (which I won't go into in case you want to read this) that was annoying. One last complaint - if this book is taking place in the present day, then Richard Jury and the other children born during WWII would be in their 60's. Is Richard Jury - the heart throb detective - sopposed to be 65? Is the middle-aged woman who is the baby in question 62. How old is her mother? Eighty? If you are a Richard Jury fan you will probably want to read this book but be prepared to be disappointed. Too much atmosphere - not enough plot.

Why, Martha, why?
The anger I felt after reading Martha Grimes' The Blue Last is probably my own fault...I should have known better. Afterall, this is the author who actually let a child die, so heartbreakingly, in one of the Richard Jury mysteries.
So why do I continue to read the series? Because I must have the word sucker written across my forehead? No, because I care about her characters, I enjoy the humor and the pathos, and I usually appreciate the melancholy air that surrounds her two heroes.
There is no question that Ms. Grimes is brilliant in getting one to care about her characters. That raises the issue; does she have an obligation to her readers or to thine ownself be true?
The Blue Last has all of the series' hallmarks: the dog, the cat, the children, the miserable suspects, you get the picture. But, the foreshadowing is pervasive from the title to the enigmatic dedication.
The book is well written and sad and funny. But, it is a major disappointment.
Martha Grimes is too good a writer to feel she had to do what she did at the end. She did her readers a diservice. Does she hate us?
I'm think Ms. Grimes underestimates her considerable talent and her readership. You could argue, she's the author, she can do what she wants. But, readers, you don't have to read it.
If you are looking for answers in The Blue Last, you don't find many. Just like Richard Jury's quest to trace his past, sadly, there are only more questions.