Customer Reviews

The Blue Last: A Richard Jury Mystery

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

Richard Jury's old cop buddy, Mickey, is dying. He calls on Jury's expertise to help him solve a decades old case of deception. When modern murder intervenes, Jury and his old friend Melrose Plant set out to unravel both the new and old mysteries.

We see the usual suspects: Jury, Plant, Trueblood, the young child, the plucky boy, the old wealthy gentleman, the hard-hearted woman, the maybe-so/maybe-not imposter. What we don't see, alas, is real originality in plotting. As I read The Blue Last, I experienced deja vu--I had read this Richard Jury novel before.

Plant and Trueblood together are amusing, as usual. Ms. Grimes seems to have put too much emphasis on perspective and art style to render her theme. There seemed something lacking there. Considering the location of their excursion, the absence of a certain female character was disappointing. The sudden bit appearance of an old female character was surprising and felt out of place, as though she had been added just to "make the readers happy. You felt like you'd met all these characters before--even the plucky boy with the dog living on his own. Add to this, the destruction of much of the "history" of the characters as we know it (perhaps this was tying in with her theme of perspective again) and the disappointment builds. At the end, when the killer is revealed, there is no surprise. Although motive may not have been apparent, the suspect certainly had been from the beginning of the novel.

Perhaps my real disappointment comes with the ending, which can only be called ambiguous. If you dislike cliffhanger endings, you'll loathe this one. I give the book 3 stars mostly because I've read Martha Grimes since her first (Man with a Load of Mischief). Save your money for the paperback, though.

I won't re-hash what everyone else has said already--But I actually liked the Florence trip to authenticate the painting. I think the point there is--do you really have to know if something or someone is authentic?

If you have lived with and loved Maisie for 50 years, does it matter if she isn't really a blood relation? Or do you appreciate her for who she is--just like Trueblood's beautiful painting. After all, whether she is "real" or not, Maisie is hardly at fault, since she was a baby at the time of the bombing.

Like other readers, I am having a hard time with the timeline in the Jury novels. Just how old is everyone, and is the story taking place "now" or a few years ago? If Maisie had an older sister (about 55 years old) how likely is it that 9-year-old Gemma could be the sister's daughter? Not to mention Jury's older cousin who has a baby.) And no one has pyjamas mixing Tweetie Bird with Disney characters.

I think Martha Grimes is tired of this line of books, and if so she's might as well stop rather than dragging things out painfully for the fans. This book had a lot of potential, but too much co-incidence and unanswered questions. (Who is Gemma anyway? And why does every female in sight look like Vivian Leigh?) I always liked the way Hercule Poirot would wrap up everything at the end of a Christie novel!

"The Blue Last" is almost good, flawed by impossibly intelligent children, a dog who talks to himself, and forays into the art world that seem to have little application. There are errors here--for example, it is Henry V who speaks of "we few, . . . we band of brothers," not Henry IV. That small editorial error may be the objective correlative of what is wrong with this book. It seems hurried. Ms. Grimes seems to be growing weary of Jury and his friends. The book reveals her weariness. But is Ms. Grimes wrong to try to satisfy those of us who clamor for more of Jury when she is tired of him? The reader yearns for Jury because he had once been original, engaging, surrounded by delightful Dickensesque characters who did not need to mean anything. The weariness in this Jury makes us scrutinize those characters who float by and comment on the silliness of the human condition, seeking for them to add meaning to the novel.

This is not a bad book. There are aspects of Jury's character that are beautifully and subtly developed. The story develops well, with many clues to the mystery imbedded into the interactions of the characters. The settings evoke an atmosphere that draws the reader into it.

Avid Jury fans will be engaged throughout the book and enraged by the ending.

The anger I felt after reading Martha Grimes' The Blue Last is probably my own fault...I should have known better. Afterall, this is the author who actually let a child die, so heartbreakingly, in one of the Richard Jury mysteries.
So why do I continue to read the series? Because I must have the word sucker written across my forehead? No, because I care about her characters, I enjoy the humor and the pathos, and I usually appreciate the melancholy air that surrounds her two heroes.
There is no question that Ms. Grimes is brilliant in getting one to care about her characters. That raises the issue; does she have an obligation to her readers or to thine ownself be true?
The Blue Last has all of the series' hallmarks: the dog, the cat, the children, the miserable suspects, you get the picture. But, the foreshadowing is pervasive from the title to the enigmatic dedication.
The book is well written and sad and funny. But, it is a major disappointment.
Martha Grimes is too good a writer to feel she had to do what she did at the end. She did her readers a diservice. Does she hate us?
I'm think Ms. Grimes underestimates her considerable talent and her readership. You could argue, she's the author, she can do what she wants. But, readers, you don't have to read it.
If you are looking for answers in The Blue Last, you don't find many. Just like Richard Jury's quest to trace his past, sadly, there are only more questions.

I found the early chapters good but not compelling but soon got hooked, as usual. I do indeed find Richard Jury ever so melancholy and desperatly want to shake him. His relationships with his neighbors are a wonderful example of his unwilligness to enter into a relationship which would challange him. He sticks to 'birds with broken wings' which would ,indeed, include Melrose Plant. BUT THE ENDING !!! A VERY CRUEL WAY TO LEAVE YOUR READER, MARTHA! I kept looking for more pages ,hoping that mine was bound incorrectly

I am a big fan of the Richard Jury mysteries, but this one left me disappointed. There were numerous mistakes that did not make sense, and there were parts (such as the Florence trip) which seemed to have nothing to do with the plot. I kept waiting for there to be some tie-in to all the art history, and....nothing. The ending was awful! Too much left unanswered and too many loose ends not explained. Although I enjoyed it while I was reading it, once I got to the end I thought my copy was missing pages or something. I felt cheated by the ending and the lack of editing in this book. I caught several mistakes, so a good editor should have found them and corrected them. I also agree with several other reviewers that the timeline on this series needs to be looked at. In this book, there is talk of the Millenium Wheel, so it's not too far in the past. Jury must be pushing 60 (or past it) if he was a small boy during WWII. Well, at least I only paid about $.$$ for it on closeout....

I always eagerly await one of Ms. Grimes' Richard Jury books and was so excited when "The Blue Last" was released. The characters are like old friends, which is one of the reasons I like series so much. You don't have to read 100 pages to "get into" the book. Richard and company were as amusing as always. This book, however, like the most recent Elizabeth George book, was disappointing because of the bizarre ending. I, for one, do not like cliff hanger endings when one has to wait a year or two to find out what happens next. My recommendation would be to hold off reading this book until the next Richard Jury book is out.

Boy, was I disappointed by this book. I can't recall ever reading another mystery where the author has shown such disdain for her readers. I would complain about all the loose ends but since Ms. Grimes didn't really bother to tie anything together it seems superfluous. I definitely agree with those that said she seemed to have reached her page limit and just ended the story abruptly. That alone would be frustrating but the rest of the book makes little sense either. I actually went back and reread large portions of the book to see if I had skipped something because the characters seem to leap to conclusions with little or no foundation -- no such luck, the book really doesn't make much sense. The usual contract between a mystery writer and her readers is that the clues are embedded within the story if only the reader is clever enough to discern them. In this case that contract is broken. The murderer's motive is highly implausible, major characters are suddenly dropped(what did happen to Benny and Gemma?), and Melrose suddenly has a burst of inspiration that comes from nowhere. The sad thing is that this book had a promising premise -- it explores memories of England in WWII -- and the series is one I have enjoyed in the past. Admittedly, it was already starting to seem a bit shopworn(does every mystery have to involve precocious children) but if the author is tired of writing the series (as her alter ego within the book hints) the honorable solution is to stop writing more Richard Jury books. Instead, Ms. Grimes has chosen to foist a half baked mess on an unwitting public -- I suppose she made more money this way but at the expense of any authorial pride.

I've been reading (and until recently enjoying) Martha Grimes' Richard Jury series since shortly after "The Man with a Load of Mischief" came out. But the imagined scenes with philosophers debating and generally plodding writing--not to mention the innumerable typos--finally led me to skip the middle hundred or so pages of the book (I had gotten far enough in that I still wanted to know "whodunnit"). And you know what? The book didn't suffer at all from the omission. I was quickly able to figure out what I'd missed and saved myself a couple hours of agony. After this I'm not sure I will continue with the series. (And really, she MUST stop with the internal monologues of dogs!)

Although I have always enjoyed the Richard Jury series with all the characters and plots, this book was a big disappointment. The plot wandered all over the place, with a side trip to Italy with Melrose and Trueblood which had nothing to do with the mystery. Also, the main mystery was never really explained or solved, characters you cared about were left in limbo, and the ending was absolutely awful, didn't make any sense at all.