When a dismembered corpse is found in the compartments of an antique writing bureau, Marshall Trueblood, recipient of the precious piece of furniture, is the first to protest: “I bought the desk, not the body, send it back.” Who would want to kill Simon Lean, the greedy nephew of the wealthy Lady Summerston? Leave it to Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard to suggest a connection to the murder of brassy Limehouse lady named Sadie Driver, found dead near Wapping Old Stairs…if that stone-cold body on the slipway is really Sadie. Not even her brother, Tommy, on a visit from Gravesend, can swear to it.
Superintendent Richard Jury investigates the murder of Simon Lean, greedy nephew of wealthy Lady Summerston, and the list of suspects includes Simon's wife Hannah, beautiful Diane Demorney, bookshop owner Theo Wrenn Brown, and a best-selling romance writer
The third in the bestselling Richard Jury mystery series by Martha Grimes. A spinster whose passion was bird-watching, a dotty peer who pinched pennies, and a baffling murder made the tiny village of Littlebourne a most extraordinary place. And a severed finger made a ghastly clue in the killing that led local constables from a corpse to a boggy footpath to a beautiful lady’s mansion. But Richard Jury refused, preferring to take the less traveled route to a slightly disreputable pub, the Anodyne Necklace. There, drinks all around loosened enough tongues to link a London mugging with the Littlebourne murder and a treasure map that would chart the way to yet another chilling crime.
Follows the inimitable Scotland Yard Superintendent's investigation into a cold-case involving a vertigo sufferer's fatal accident after a young girl's death in the same house.
Since the 1979 discovery of her work in a slush pile at Little, Brown, Martha Grimes has gone on to publish more than 30 books, win international acclaim (and a Nero Wolfe Award) for her detective series, and develop a following of readers whose loyalty translates to repeated stays on the best-sellers lists. This collection of 10 critical essays provides an in-depth analysis of Grimes' oeuvre, principally the Richard Jury, Emma Graham, and Andi Oliver series. The essays address Grimes' themes of parental abandonment, loneliness, obsession, greed, mistaken and dual identity, the resilience of children, stunted romantic relationships and animal cruelty. Particular attention is paid to her engaging characters, strong sense of place and the comedy, which feature so strongly in her novels.
Vibrates with encouragement for women who want to explore and enjoy the world of booksGladys Hunt, long-time advocate of reading and author of the cherished Honey for a Child’s Heart, has written this new book for busy women who want a wider worldview and stimulus for intellectual and emotional growth. Honey for a Woman’s Heart explores:* The wonder of words, language, and reading* What good books offer thoughtful readers* What makes a good book* The value of reading fiction* Best books in genres of fiction, nonfiction, spirituality, and poetry* How to enjoy the best of books: the Bible* The pleasure of sharing books with others* Something for everyone, no matter what age or reading experience* Recommendations for over 500 books to enjoyPleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Proverbs 16:24
The murder is in America, but the call goes out to Scotland Yard superintendent Richard Jury. Accompanied by his aristocratic friend Melrose Plant and by Sargeant Wiggins, Jury arrives in Baltimore, Maryland, home of zealous Orioles fans, mouth-watering crabs, and Edgar Allen Poe. In his efforts to solve the case, Jury rubs elbows with a delicious and suspicious cast of characters, embarking on a trail that leads to a unique tavern called The Horse You Came In On…
Many cultures have myths about self-imitation, stories about people who pretend to be someone else pretending to be them, in effect masquerading as themselves. This great theme, in literature and in life, tells us that people put on masks to discover who they really are under the masks they usually wear, so that the mask reveals rather than conceals the self beneath the self. In this book, noted scholar of Hinduism and mythology Wendy Doniger offers a cross-cultural exploration of the theme of self-impersonation, whose widespread occurrence argues for both its literary power and its human value. The stories she considers range from ancient Indian literature through medieval European courtly literature and Shakespeare to Hollywood and Bollywood. They illuminate a basic human way of negotiating reality, illusion, identity, and authenticity, not to mention memory, amnesia, and the process of aging. Many of them involve marriage and adultery, for tales of sexual betrayal cut to the heart of the crisis of identity. These stories are extreme examples of what we common folk do, unconsciously, every day. Few of us actually put on masks that replicate our faces, but it is not uncommon for us to become travesties of ourselves, particularly as we age and change. We often slip carelessly across the permeable boundary between the un-self-conscious self-indulgence of our most idiosyncratic mannerisms and the conscious attempt to give the people who know us, personally or publicly, the version of ourselves that they expect. Myths of self-imitation open up for us the possibility of multiple selves and the infinite regress of self-discovery. Drawing on a dizzying array of tales-some fact, some fiction-The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was is a fascinating and learned trip through centuries of culture, guided by a scholar of incomparable wit and erudition.
In a sleepy resort town, Maud Chadwick waits tables at the Rainbow Cafe. Her confidant is Sheriff Sam DeGheyn and what they have in common is obsession. Maude doesn't want her son to leave home, and Sam cannot let go of the unsolved murders of three local women -- or his intuition that the killer is still out there. How these lives intertwine reveals a rich and startling story of parents and children and the pain they cause one another. "Gripping." CHICAGO SUN TIMES
"Chew on this," says Melrose Plant to Richard Jury, who's in the hospital being driven crazy by Hannibal, a nurse who likes to speculate on his chances for survival. Jury could use a good story, preferably one not ending with his own demise. Plant tells Jury of something he overheard in The Grave Maurice, a pub near the hospital. A woman told an intriguing story about a girl named Nell Ryder, granddaughter to the owner of the Ryder Stud Farm in Cambridgeshire, who went missing more than a year before and has never been found. What is especially interesting to Plant is that Nell is also the daughter of Jury's surgeon. But Nell's disappearance isn't the only mystery at the Ryder farm. A woman has been found dead on the track-a woman who was a stranger even to the Ryders. But not to Plant. She's the woman he saw in The Grave Maurice. Together with Jury, Nell's family, and the Cambridgeshire police, Plant embarks on a search to find Nell and bring her home. But is there more to their mission than just restoring a fifteen-year-old girl to her family? The Grave Maurice is the eighteenth entry in the Richard Jury series and, from its pastoral opening to its calamitous end, is full of the same suspense and humor that devoted readers expect from Martha Grimes.
