The Dirty Duck

Rating:
Summary: Not as Good as the Others in this Wonderful Series
Review: I am puzzled by Martha Grimes' response to Americans in this novel. As an American, albeit one who is writing British mysteries, she comes up with a whole tour full of unsympathetic American tourists here--even down to what I think are supposed to be humerous names for them. I think this is unfortunate, since it weakens the book, which has a plot that could have held up just as well if the characters were less insistantly annoying.
Martha Grimes is one of my favorite writers, and I don't think this novel holds up anywhere near as well as the others in this wonderful series.

Rating:
Summary: Be careful what you wish for
Review: I was taking a few days off work (can you call it vacation if you mostly stay home and drive your kids and their friends around?) so I didn't want to read the stack of business books waiting for me. And I didn't feel ready to get back into Tolkien. I told my wife I wanted a mystery that I could read in a couple of days - nothing as cerebral as Holmes, but not a fluff (vacation shouldn't be a total waste). She hands me The Dirty Duck. Yes another really great Detective Superintendent Richard Jury story. A bucket full of interesting (read: quirky, but loveable) characters in a great setting (Stratford-on Avon) - only one of them has this nasty thing about using a razor in a most unconventional way - and then leaving a bit of poetry on the corpses as a signature. And just to add a twist, a little boy who is related to two of the victims is missing. I put Martha Grimes right up there with Christie for character and plot twists any day. If you haven't sampled Martha Grimes yet, you don't know what you are missing.

Rating:
Summary: Short And Funny
Review: This is one of her shorter stories that can be enjoyed in an afternoon. The meeting of Melrose Plant and Harvey Schoenberg is hysterical! I felt I could see Melrose's brain desperately trying to decode this odd little man's obscure theory of Shakespeare and friends. And yes, some Americans in Europe can be a little overbearing, when left to their own means. I enjoyed it ever so much!

Rating:
Summary: Witty but not well plotted
Review: This is the first book by Martha Grimes I have read, after a couple of friends recommended her. She has a witty style and is obviously well-read (references to Shakespeare and the Elizabethan world play an important role in the book). Unfotunately the denouement, contrary to a reviewer's blurb on the back cover, is not well conceived and is resolved with the help of a deus ex machina-character flown into England on a Concorde jet liner (really). The main characters, Richard Jury and Melrose Plant, are likable; this book may just be a weak entry in the series.