The Grave Maurice [Hardcover]

Martha Grimes (Author)

Book Description

Series: Richard Jury Mysteries | Publication Date: August 26, 2002

"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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In this, the 18th outing in Martha Grimes's popular series featuring Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury and his aristocrat pal Melrose Plant, Jury, recuperating from a near-fatal shooting (The Blue Last) hears about the two-year-old abduction of his doctor's talented young daughter, Nell Ryder, who disappeared from her grandfather's stud farm, along with a champion thoroughbred horse. Pursuing the stalled investigation when he's released from the hospital, Jury stumbles on a complicated scheme involving murder, insurance fraud, and a scheme to replicate a popular menopause drug derived from the urine of pregnant mares. As readers of this popular series know, while there's a mystery at the heart of every Jury novel, the real payoff is in Grimes's lucent prose, wit, and complex characterizations. Fans of British mystery writer Dick Francis, who's made the world of thoroughbreds his own turf, will find this a delightful diversion, particularly since Francis recently announced his retirement from the genre. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

In the 18th entry in this popular series (after 2001's The Blue Last), Grimes serves up a convoluted hodgepodge of rape, kidnapping and murder, then throws in corporate greed, animal rights issues and assorted satires of modern British society. Supt. Jury is hospitalized following a shooting in an earlier case. His aristocratic assistant, Melrose Plant (aka Lord Ardry) overhears two women in a pub curiously called the Grave Maurice discussing the disappearance of horse enthusiast Nell Ryder, who turns out to be the daughter of Jury's doctor, the first of many implausible coincidences. Nell's devoted 16-year-old cousin, who's also named Maurice, has been in a grave mood following Nell's apparent abduction. This poor lad must also cope with his father's death, his mother's flight to America and a growth spurt that has left him too tall to be a jockey, his life's ambition. Most of this long and winding tale deals with the world of horse racing and its seamier sides. Pregnant mares are being badly treated at a stud farm where their urine is collected for a commercial menopause drug. People and prize thoroughbreds get snatched away in the night, and, to the dismay of his elders, a greedy stepbrother has left the Ryder farm to peddle IPOs in London. Jury's investigation gets off to a tardy start, by which time Plant has dug himself in deep, even buying his own horse to try to understand the lore of racing. Frequent digressions divert the sleuths (and the reader) from the investigative trail. (Aug. 26) Forecast: A 10-city author tour, on top of national print publicity and advertising, should help launch this one into bestseller territory.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (August 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670030457
• ISBN-13: 978-0670030453
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,487,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martha Grimes is the bestselling author of twenty-one Richard Jury novels, as well as the novels Dakota and Foul Matter, among others. Her previous two Jury books, The Old Wine Shades and Dust, both appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More Fantasy than Mystery, October 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Grave Maurice (Hardcover)

I was a big fan of Ms. Grimes' earlier works, but her last few Jury mysteries have been extremely disappointing. Again, she utilizes extremely chance meetings and far-fetched links amoung strangers to produce the mystery as well as solve it. She should also re-read her earlier books and reacquaint herself with her characters. In "The Old Fox Deceived", Melrose had backflashes about participating in a cubbing (pre-season hunt) as a 10-year-old and the trauma of having the fox's blood smeared on him as part of a bizarre ritual. In addition, in the 'Fox Deceived' story, he participated in a hunt -- galloping over fields and jumping ditches and fences -- during which a body was discovered. But, in "The Grave Maurice", he was portrayed as knowing nothing about fox-hunting nor about riding a horse. I think Martha is tired of her characters; maybe she should let them fade away gracefully.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Grave Morose, February 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Grave Maurice (Hardcover)

This latest from Martha Grimes was easily put down through the first half. Picked up half way through with some notion of redemtion, but the ending left a fruther bad taste in the mouth. I can't say this was poorly done, but is is not representative of the Richard Jury series, more like her other books with dispondent aimless characters. (No matter how many time the work "focused" was used, unbelievably surmised from a photograph, she was aimless through out the book). The plot did not particularly hold together well, some characters stuffed in to plug obvious gaps in the ploting. I was expecting a more fun read Grimes, had I known, I would have read it a nother time.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Big Disappointment!, March 20, 2003

By 

Jill (Pacific Northwest USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Grave Maurice (Hardcover)

I've been a big fan of Martha Grimes, but this book was a terrible read! I nearly gave up after the first few chapters, but continued plodding through only because I was stuck at a horse show for a week with no other reading material. The plot is poorly done, the characters are shallow (I mean, I really didn't care anymore who lived or died or who ended up being the villian -- I just wanted to get through and done), and it just didn't meet the high expectations I had from my past experience with her books. I think I may have to go back and reread some of her previous works just to remind myself of how good she can be. And if you have never read a Martha Grimes' book, do not choose this one as an example. She can do so much better!