Product Description

A passionate affair comes to a crashing halt when Richard Jury's lover is found dead. And since Jury is himself a suspect, he must send Melrose Plant to her family's Lake District home, where secrets that rise to the surface threaten to pull the contentious clan under.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #297309 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780451412133
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Richard Jury, London police superintendent, is a suspect himself in Grimes's 11th mystery named after English pubs--this one in the Lake District of poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. Jury is considering marriage to recently met widow Jane Holdsworth at the moment her teenaged son Alex finds her dead, apparently a suicide. Alex runs away, and Jury, required, as a suspect, to remain in London, sends old friend Melrose Plant up to the Lakes to learn what he can about the wealthy Holdsworth family, among whom Jane's death is the fourth suspicious one. Eccentric, appealing characters hold this scattershot plot together. Best are vulnerable, brave and preternaturally bright youngsters Alex, who cheats at poker and the horses brilliantly, and 11-year-old orphan Millie Thale, who cooks at Holdsworth manse and broods over her own mother's unexpected death five years before. Equally vivid are two residents at a nearby rest home for the wealthy elderly: sly Adam Holdsworth, who holds the pursestrings that tie the tale together, and his elegant foxy friend, the perceptive and kleptomaniacal Lady Cray. While the villain's exposure and motivation are inadequately developed, the tale's dramatic conclusion, the lowering setting and its entertaining denizens provide full compensation.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA-- Superintendent Richard Jury, of Scotland Yard fame, is back, but this time he is the suspect as well as the investigator of a murder. To the amazement of his lifelong friends, Jury falls rapidly in love with a widow, Jane Holdsworth, and plans a proposal of marriage. Her shocking death from a barbiturate overdose is ruled a suicide by the police, but neither Jury nor Jane's son Alex believes it. The superintendent's friend Melrose Plant infiltrates the Holdsworth household under the guise of a cataloging librarian in order to investigate the all-too-frequent "accidents" that plague them. The family members are introduced with humor and mystery as readers try to unravel the truth of the Holdsworths' fortune and Jane's death. A treat for all of Grimes's fans.
- Katherine Fitch, Jefferson Sci-Tech, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher
As the contracts director for Ballantine, most of my work is finished before a manuscript ever arrives on an editor's desk. Because of that, I have to rely on my colleagues to tell me about authors they feel I would like to read. Recently while in a meeting, I let it slip that I had never read Martha Grimes. Immediately I was told that I had to, that I would love her -- and I was asked if I had lived under a rock. Since I had a long train trip ahead of me, I said I would try her -- and someone volunteered a copy THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES from their office. I am hooked!!!. Richard Jury and his friends are such a smart, eccentric, and funny bunch that I ordered Martha Grimes' other books the morning after my train ride.

--Amelia Zalcman, Director of Contracts

Customer Reviews

A mystery for poets...
This is the 11th book in the Richard Jury Series (although you could also say it's the 11th book in the Melrose Plant series, since Melrose, ex-earl, is Jury's partner in solving the crimes. This one takes place up in Lake District, where all the great British poets once lived. There is a family, the Holdsworth family, that seems to be plagued with too many accidents, too many suicides. Again, like in Jury mysteries of the past, Grimes gives us an extraordinary child. In fact, there are two such children, Alex and Millie, around whom the mystery circles. My favorite characters in this book is not the children but the two old coots--Adam Holdsworth and Lady Cray--living in Castle Howe retirement home. So, if you are in the mood for a good mystery, grab a cup of tea, a volume of Wordsworth, and this Jury mystery and have a great evening!

Unusual
I've tried to start this book about ten times before I got over the hump. This book has an interesting plot along with fascinating charachters but there are many parts where you snooze off and then it becomes rather fast paced again.

Also there are a few things in the story that are confusing. Why did the doctor kill Millie's mother? It says she did but I couldn't figure out a reason for why. Also the ending is quite far fetched compared to the rest of the book.

Too many plot shifts
The author seems to know where she is going with this story, but seems to drift about getting there. I had a hard time maintaining an interest. Part of the problem is the writing style, and references to some locations in England that I had a difficult time visualizing. Perhaps it needed a map. Part of the plot seems to revolve around possible gay relationships but, as Inspector Jury notes, does anyone in today's world really care.

The story starts out with characters from Long Piddleton who are off in Venice. The time period is about ten years after Jury made his first appearance. There is concern that a woman may marry the wrong person, and schemes are hatched to redirect the romance. Apparently you need to read a prequel to completely understand the situation.

The scene then shifts back to London with a plot involving the death of a woman Jury has just become acquainted with. From London, the plot shifts to an estate in a country village, and the various family members and associated individuals who are connected to the dead woman. A couple of previous deaths are brought into the plot.

Along the way, you get a description of driving on a bad road, which really has nothing to do with the plot, and a description of various characters at the Old Contemptibles, an Inn in the village, who don't really figure into the main plot (the author has a habit of putting various excess baggage into her stories).

It becomes a question of who has any advantage from the deaths that have occurred. It is a question of power, and the ending seemed a bit strange. The original plot reimerges briefly. Then some of the characters mete out their own form of justice, at which point the story ends.