Fri 10 Sep 2010
MARTHA GRIMES – Jerusalem Inn. Little, Brown & Co., hardcover, 1984. Paperback reprints include: Dell, 1985; Onyx, 2004.
Superintendent Richard Jury meets a woman in a graveyard. He finds her attractive, makes a dinner date, and when he comes to keep it, she is dead — poisoned.
His investigation takes him to the Jerusalem Inn, a country pub where snooker is played in the back room. Meanwhile, fate is busy drawing Jury’s amateur detective friend, Melrose Plant (aka the Earl of Caverness) his Aunt Agatha, and their mutual. friend, Vivian Rivington, to the same vicinity for a Christmas house party.
The guests consist of artists and writers who are taciturn, and dilettantes who definitely aren’t. Nicest of the bunch is young Tommy, ace snooker player, otherwise known as the Marquess of Meares.
Another murder ensues, and a confusion of motives. Jury moves along to a conclusion, but slowly. This is a contemporary version of the old-fashioned British Christmas house party murder mystery, and as such, it really ought to have a final chapter in which everyone is gathered together and everything is explained. Too many loose ends are left untied for my liking.
Previously reviewed on this blog:
The Black Cat (by Ray O’Leary)
The Case Has Altered (by Steve Lewis)
September 10th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
This was the beginning of my disenchantment with Grimes and Jury (pretty early actually). It’s not a bad book, but like many of her Jury novels not really satisfying as either a mystery or a novel. At some point I just quit trying to love these and moved on.