Customer Reviews

The Man With a Load of Mischief

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In her Richard Jury/Melrose Plant series of mysteries, Martha Grimes has developed an ensemble cast who play the same role, but with different levels of involvement from book to book. As one works his way through these mystery novels, all the members of the ensemble take on lives of their own. Another reviewer has stated that, in later novels, this being the first in the series, they become stereotypes. It is my opinion that they merely stay in character. This is not to say however that they don't show growth and appropriate change with time and circumstance. They do.

One should know that the name of this book, THE MAN WITH A LOAD OF MISCHIEF, is the name of an English pub where part of the action takes place. This approach is taken in all of the novels in this series. (18 to date covering over 20 years of writing)

Although any one of these novels can be read in any order, this one gives more character background than any of the others. (I read it after having already read 16 others and it didn't hurt my comprehension of the others a bit.) Each novel has an interesting and entertaining plot. That said, what really distinguishes Ms Grimes' writing is the humor and local color she evokes through the antics, interrelationships, and subplots involving the various members of her cast of characters. There are over a dozen of them and each is fully realized with personalities, weaknesses and strengths, likes and dislikes, and friends and enemies.

The plot here involves the murder of strangers visiting the English town of Long Piddleton. In order to solve the mystery of the murders, it is first necessary to determine whether the murders were the random work of some madman, or if they were somehow related in a way that is not apparent. That is the gist of the plot.

The ensemble consists of 12 to 18 characters whose importance tends to vary from novel to novel. In this, and most of the others, Detective Chief Inspector Richard Jury of New Scotland Yard, his assistant, the hypochondriacal Sergeant Wiggins, and his newfound friend in Long Piddleton, Melrose Plant, the former Lord Ardry are the key participants (Melrose is the former Lord Ardry because he didn't want the title of Earl and so renounced it.)

There are a great number of players at the next tier and each is important in his own right. Some provide a real touch of humor, and others contribute to the main plot, but all combine to make this book what it is.

I must digress here and give a short description of Melrose Plant's Aunt Agatha - Lady Ardry - Lady because she happened to marry Melrose's titled uncle. She is an American and is enamored of the concept of being titled. Picture, if you will, a rather rotund late middle-aged woman who wears a cape, pushing open a door with no regard as to who or what might be on the other side, wielding a silver cane, like a sword, shoving aside anyone who happens to be between her and her destination. As often as not, her destination is a tray of cakes, tarts, and other sweets which she demands as her due at her nephew's home. After eating them all, she complains because there are no more, and on her way out pilfers Melrose's late mother's diamond ring, or a precious jade carving, or some other valuable item. Later she will wear the jewelry or display the stolen object in front of Melrose with no sense of shame. How Melrose handles this with humor and a shrug of his shoulders is an example of Ms. Grimes tongue in cheek manner.

Another character we come to know and love is Cyril The Cat who loves to torment Jury's Superior (in rank only) and always outwits him.

There are more, lots more.

So if one likes mystery with a liberal sprinkling of humor THE MAN WITH A LOAD OF MISCHIEF might be just what the doctor ordered.

I've read most of the Richard Jury novels, and it was a real treat to read the first in the series where all the characters are introduced. A number of the characters who later become a bit frozen in their stereotype behaviour are very real in this book-- I think particularly of Vivian and Trueblood-- and it's worth reading if you're a fan just for those points alone.

When a series of grisly murders shocks the town of Long Piddleton, Richard Jury of Scotland Yard is sent to investigate. It becomes clear all-too-soon that these were not the acts of a stranger and the small town is in the grip of suspicion and fear as the death toll continues to rise.

A satisfying whodunnit that keeps the pages turning.

The first Inspector Richard Jury and Melrose Plant mystery deals with dark secrets that haunt the village of Long Piddleton, where a series of murders have taken
place. More over, this is where you get to meet all the lovable characters of Grimes
delightful British Mystery series, all named after Brit pubs. Jury is super investigator, but he must deal with the political side of his job, which he doesn't handle in the same deft fashion as he does solving cases. You also meet Melrose Plant, a mutli-titled Peer of the Realm, who has recently given up his titles, a spot on detective himself, though amateur. His dotty, social-climbing American Aunt Agatha Ardry, determined to be British by osmosis - leaching off her dear, long suffering nephew while eating all the faerycakes. Ruthven, the ever-efficient butler (who never did it!). Grimes loads the tale with a stable of supporting characters, and enough red herrings to make a lunch! Curry is the perfect narrator to bring Grimes prose alive. All her books can be stand alone, but you enjoy them so much more if you start with this one and work your way through.

For those of you who, like me, discovered Martha Grimes when she was well into her series of books featuring Richard Jury, I highly recommend this first in the series. The well plotted, if somewhat overly complex story is a good read, but the real fun is in meeting Melrose Plant, Superintendent Racer (sans cat), Marshall Trueblood, Vivian and Little Pid for the first time. There is an added bonus in that one of the characters is an expert on the history of the strange and exotic names of English country inns. As the afficianado knows, Ms. Grimes has used these names to good effect as titles for the books in her Jury series

I am a Richard Jury fan to the core. I normally like to begin a series by reading the first book written. However, Man with a Load of Mischief was the second book I read by Martha Grimes. Here we are introduced to the main characters that appear throughout the Richard Jury series. Ms. Grimes does a wonderful job of giving her characters life and color. They seem almost real from the wealthy and charming former earl, Melrose Plant to his irritating aunt-by-marriage Agatha. Here we get a glimpse of Marshall Trueblood who owns the antique store and revals in dressing loudly, smoking colored cigarettes and teasing Agatha. Here Jury meets these characters and more for the first time and forms a lasting friendship with Melrose. Here we get the first glimpse into Jury's life where relationships with women are rarely successful for long periods of time. Martha Grimes cleverly mixes murder with humor to produce a very entertaining novel. A true literary success.

I have read maybe 10 or 12 of Grime's Jury/Plant mysteries in no particular order, and I loved every single one of them. However, I was quite surprised this year that I have been able to reread 2 of them so far ("The Old Silent" and "Man With a Load of Mischief") and enjoy them as much as the first time! The humor and her perfect timing are as fresh the 2nd time around, and I had honestly forgotten many of her subtle clues.

For anyone new to Grimes, she is an absolutely masterful mystery writer. What sets her apart is her focus on a pair of sharp, witty, handsome and ultimately vulnerable 40 year old bachelors, Jury and Plant. Jury and Plant are so endearing in their development - as opposed to a Poroit or Holmes - that you wish you actually knew them or people like them. In fact, you feel like you do know them. Their surrounding cast of characters - Lady Ardry, Vivian, Trueblood, Scroggs, Withersby, Wiggins, Fiona, Mrs. Wasserman, Racer - all heighten your appreciation of the main characters.

In this particular book, the first in the series, you get to see Grimes set the stage with all these characters. How does Jury (an inspector with the New Scotland Yard) ever hook up with Plant (a part-time professor who gave up his titles years ago)? Why is Trueblood in Long Pidd? What is Plant and Vivian's history? How do you pronounce Ruthven? What is the deal with the names of pubs in England (a central theme for Grimes)?

The basic plotline in this book is that 2 men - strangers to the small village of Long Pidd - have been strangled and left to be discovered in very odd ways. The reason for their murders is so obscure that Scotland Yard gets brought in to help out. After Jury arrives on the scene, however, the murders don't stop. What is the connection between these random people? Will the entire population of the small town be killed off before the murderer is found? Will Jury and Plant become good friends? All these questions are answered as Grimes also masterfully laces her humorous storyline with clues and names that point to solution of these mysterious murders.

This is a very engaging book. It was lots of fun to be introduced to Long Piddleton and to its assortment of eccentric characters. The plot itself is fairly complex, although not completely difficult to figure out, and it ends with what appears to be an action sequence in the life of the Richard Jury books--in a church, no less!

It is interesting to be introduced to Vivian, the femme fatale of Richard Jury, Melrose Plant, etc., in this book. I am not sure that I ocmpletely see the attraction, but that seems to be one of the interesting truths about relationships that comes out in Martha Grimes' books--relationships and attractions have a strength and life of their own.

It's the first in a series so if you like murder mystery series books it's best to start at the beginning. The characters are a bit sparse though and only two are a tad more fleshed out than the others, Melrose Plant and Richard Jury himself. You'll learn a bit of English pub naming conventions which is an interesting bit of information. The plot is not very plausible but it is mysterious. All the little threads mostly come together at the end but it is a tortuous route.

The plot and the characters are done well and over all I enjoyed it. However this text desperately needs an English editor. The author repeatedly makes errors regarding the English milieu. The most glaring of which is the appearance of skunks in the English countryside, and a 10d nail is known only in north America in England despite the attempts of the EU nails are referred to by their inch length. Therefore it should have been a 3"nail that had been wrenched free being the equivalent to 10d. Yes I realise this sounds picky but the effect is to stop the flow of the story and jerk the reader back into reality, very jarring and in the end distracting I started to prepare for the next error rather than go along for the ride. so 7/10

This is the first of the Inspector Jury mysteries. My own debut with the series was one of the most recent books, Winds of Change. I enjoyed that greatly, but I found the large cast of characters a bit of a strain on the memory, so I next chose the first of all, expecting to be introduced to the main characters in a systematic way. To some extent I have been, but Ms Grimes doesn't really do systematic introductions. Jury, Melrose Plant and the others ease their way on to the scene rather than make any highlighted entrance. However with another volume in the series behind me I was better attuned to what to expect, and I coped better with the extensive character-list this time.

One thing that helped was that so many people in this story are murdered that there are fewer to keep tabs on as the book progresses. Indeed unless I'm mistaken the author herself loses count of exactly how many. Another intriguing feature is that the story has actually two heroes, Jury himself and the elegant aristocratic dilettante Melrose Plant, formerly Viscount this and Baron that before he resigned his titles out of boredom. Otherwise the style is a rather brilliant pastiche of the traditional English whodunit, as practised most famously by Agatha Christie. American spelling is used (vise, gray, fiber, checkbook) but otherwise it would be hard to tell that the author was not another English Rose herself, except for an oddly nonchalant attitude to geography that I had also noticed in Winds of Change - she appears to think that Northamptonshire, which is in the south Midlands, is somewhere in northern England. Like Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle she has a penchant for bachelors as making the best detectives, although there is one solitary reference, never elaborated, to some one called Maggie who haunts Jury's memory, and I have to hope that this was someone who had formed part of his personal life and not the prime minister at the time of the book's creation.

The book is light reading, but there are one or two good phrases and more than one or two striking perceptions that suggest to me that Grimes has depths to her that may be more apparent in her other kinds of fiction. The story-line is a genuine page-turner, I found, and the final denouement is an excellent specimen of the over-the-top genre, more familiar these days from detective series on television than from Christie and her generation. The atmosphere evokes the picture-postcard kind of English village, still without ethnic minorities or cut-price housing developments, that Christie's Miss Marple would have recognised, and the place-names are at least a brave attempt at English nomenclature. As far as the dialogue goes, Grimes seems to me to have a very good ear indeed, to the extent that even Plant's American whodunit-writing aunt talks in the general English manner, despite her difficulties with some people's names.

This is a more straightforward detective story than the much more recent Winds of Change. The narrative is all focused on the plot-line without diverging into the deeper recesses of Jury's or anyone else's personality and deeper thoughts, although there are a few displays of erudition just to give a distinctive feel to it all. I'd say that a genuine distinctiveness is what I like best about Martha Grimes, so far as I have got to know her by this stage, and it appears likely that she values this quality herself, to judge from the scorn heaped on the derivative efforts of one author in the course of the story. Her large following do not need me to tell them what to look for or what to admire, but for newcomers like myself I would say start at the beginning - with this book. Apart from anything else, I found myself admiring the adeptness with which this American writer has captured a particularly English type of style without affectation or artificiality. If you like this sort of thing, you should find this a fine example of the sort of thing you like.