Product Description

Bad tidings come to Scotland Yard's Richard Jury and sidekick Melrose Plant when clues from two corpses lead them to a remote country inn-where holiday cheer turns to holiday fear.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102324 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"She is working in the great tradition . . . Good news for addicts--crime with style." -- Mary Cantwell, Vogue.

"[She] gets our immediate attention . . . .  She holds it, however, with something more than mere suspense." --The New Yorker

From the Publisher
A white Christmas couldn't make Newcastle any less dreary for Scotland Yard's Superintendent Richard Jury--until he met a beautiful woman in a snow-covered graveyard. Sensual, warm, and a bit mysterious, she could have put some life into his sagging holiday spirit. But the next time Jury saw her, she was cold--and dead. Melrose Plant. Jury's aristocratic sidekick wasn't faring much better. Snow bound at a stately mansion with a group of artists, critics, and idle-but-titled rich, he, too, encountered a lovely lady . . . or rather, stumbled over her corpse. What linked these two yuletide murders was a remote country pub where snooker, a Nativity scene, and an old secret would uncover a killer . . . or yet another death. "She is working in the great tradition . . . Good news for addicts--crime with style." -- Mary Cantwell, Vogue.

"[She] gets our immediate attention . . . . She holds it, however, with something more than mere suspense." --The New Yorker

From the Inside Flap
A white Christmas couldn't make Newcastle any less dreary for Scotland Yard's Superintendent Richard Jury--until he met a beautiful woman in a snow-covered graveyard.  Sensual, warm, and a bit mysterious, she could have put some life into his sagging holiday spirit.  But the next time Jury saw her, she was cold--and dead.  Melrose Plant.  Jury's aristocratic sidekick wasn't faring much better.  Snow bound at a stately mansion with a group of artists, critics, and idle-but-titled rich, he, too, encountered a lovely lady . . . or rather, stumbled over her corpse.  What linked these two yuletide murders was a remote country pub where snooker, a Nativity scene, and an old secret would uncover a killer . . . or yet another death.

Customer Reviews

Near The Top Of Her Form
I've read over a dozen of the Richard Jury books by Martha Grimes, but I only read Jerusalem Inn recently. I'd put it near the top of the list. I think The Man With A Load Of Mischief is a bit better, and The Old Silent has a much more complicated plot. Martha Grimes seems to balance the recurring elements of the Jury series much better in this book than in some others. In Jerusalem Inn, we start off with Richard Jury's angst and self-doubt, a recurring theme in the series, but it's not overly done. The mystery of the dead woman is well crafted, and the thread which connects her to the other protagonists is drawn out skillfully over the course of the book. The Long Piddleton characters - Melrose Plant, his aunt, Vivian, and butler Ruthven - add just the right humorous touch, again in better proportion to this book than in some others. There is a pub named the Jerusalem Inn, of course, peopled by a separate group of characters. And, in common with most of the Grimes books, there is an upstart little girl, although again this is more in balance with the rest of the plot than elsewhere. Having read almost all of this series, I'd suggest reading this one second, after The Man With A Load Of Mischief. If you enjoy English mysteries in the classic style, this will not disappoint.

Haunting story with good supporting characters
Christmas is definitely not merry for Richard Jury, who is a man without family and home at the start of this book. He meets a lonely, beautiful woman in a graveyard at the beginning, but a day later she is dead ahd he is left holding questions instead and trying to tie together the pieces of the woman's life, which seem oddly unfinished.

Along the way, he meets up with Melrose Plant, Agatha, and Vivian, on a Christmas visit at a stately home with a rather conventional cast of odd upperclass guests and hangers-on.

This is a novel that is strong on atmosphere and interesting side characters--the crumbling pensioners in the equally disintegrating seaside resort are especially powerful. The plot, which deals with changelings, sometimes seems contrived, but ends up havng its own power.

Good, Solid Grimes ... again
Mystery and thriller series rely on repetition of character, venue and atmosphere, and Martha Grimes' Richard Jury series never disappoints. Set in the rugged Winter landscape near Newcastle, all our regular characters manage to congregate in an old manor house, near a working class pub named Jerusalem Inn. Grimes' books all take their titles from a pub, and this pub is a bit less homey and a bit more basic than some. Jerusalem Inn takes on a certain sinister atmosphere from the moment we first hear of it.

In this book, Jury becomes both personally involved as well as professionally, which leads to certain plot and character twists. As always, solving the crime - well multiple crimes - calls on the talents not only of Jury, but his well heeled friend and unofficial sidekick, Melrose Plant. The rest of the characters all arrive at the Spinneyton Manor - Vivian, Agatha, Ruthven - as well as the required appearances of Racer and Fiona ... but the Scotland yard crew is far less present in this work. Even Wiggins - Jury's faithful and always ailing assistant - plays a much more secondary role.

I liked this book more than others - I thought the pacing was a notch above many of the others. But in the end, you need to like the British Mystery genre to appreciate this - its not just about solving the crime - its about involving yourself in the characters, atmosphere, and joy of the place - that really define Grimes' books and other authors of the same. Great read. Great Grimes.