Customer Reviews

The Winds of Change

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Martha Grimes is back with another entry in the Richard Jury series. This book revolves around three murders, a little girl shot found shot the in the head, the death of Jury's cousin, his last living relative, and the death of a strange woman found in the garden of house named Angel Gate. The owner of the Angel Gate's young stepdaughter vanished three years ago, but is not the little girl who was found shot.

Much of this story is introspective for Richard Jury as he examines his feelings about the death of his cousin who he had really never liked in life. That part of the book was very slow moving for me and ultimately did not work. Melrose Plant, a fixture in many prior Jury books was brought into this story, but seemed to be so extraneous that it seemed ridiculous. If you a fan of Richard Jury, then I would recommend reading it, but for others the prior Jury novels are much better. This one was a bit of a chore to get through.

I am a HUGE fan of Martha Grimes, and I eagerly await each new addition to her long-running Richard Jury series. I really enjoyed this newest book in the series. Jury has matured and developed into a wonderful character, and there are still the wonderful eccentric secondary characters in this book (although we don't see too much of the Jack and Hammer crowd this time round). But we do see Melrose Plant, and he is as usual a wonderful foil for Jury's broodiness and solitariness. Ms. Grimes also does such a wonderful job with children in her stories, and this book is no exception. The indomitable Lulu is a treat! But the story behind the mystery is not so agreeable. Ms. Grimes has tread where angels fear to go with this book. She enters the seedy world of the up-scale pedophile. As usual she handles this odious subject with her usual painter's hand, and it puts us right there with Jury and Macalvie as they try to solve a number of cases that all seem connected - the disappearance of a small girl three years ago, the death of a woman on a country estate in Cornwall and a pedophile ring that has escaped the law for far too long. Nothing is as it seems (as is usual in a Richard Jury mystery), but boy do we have a lot of fun getting there in the end. Martha Grimes is a wonderful author.

I am a huge fan of the Richard Jury series. I found this entry darker and deeper than most and ultimately quite satisfying.

In many ways, the book is a series of meditations on childhood. Not happy childhoods, of course (this is Martha Grimes)--but ones that are troubled, have undercurrents, or end suddenly and violently.

The book opens with the murder of a five year old child. In the early part of the book, Jury links the murder to a home of pedophilia near the site. In an interesting twist, the alleged backer of the pedophiliac brothel has also lost his daughter through a suspected kidnapping several years before. Jury begins connecting the dots and his journey takes him to some seamy and sordid venues. In addition, Jury himself has recently lost his last relative, a cousin, who had challenged his memories of his sad, orphaned childhood in the near past.

Jury's circle of eccentric friends--Melrose Plant, Aunt Agatha et al.--make all too brief appearances. The book is a bit too dark to have too much of their lighthearted banter.

I definitely enjoyed this installment of the Jury series. At times, I felt Grimes could have linked the plots and the sub-plots better; however, overall, it is a very satisfying read.

I've always loved this series, and Martha Grimes is clearly a gifted writer. However, I'm beginning to feel that authors should know when to end a series. I'm not surprised Knopf didn't want to publish any more in this one--I often think it should have ended after "The Old Contemptibles." This latest offering is no more than excuse to trot out all the cliches in the series--the regular characters, who in no way advance the plot (why does Melrose need to infiltrate Declan Scott's household??), which is barely discernible in any case, the stock children, who in no way resemble any child I've ever encountered. Jury's personal angst, which lingers on and on, from book to book. Enough is enough. Also, I quite agree with the reader who objected to Grimes' description of a child with Down syndrome. I was shocked to read those pages, particularly Wiggins' aversion to the boy. I don't know what message that was meant to send.

I have been missing Jury, but especially Melrose, Agatha, and Trueblood, for way too long. Here they are back again, and the trademark Grimes cameos are in place: the various on-the-spot children and their never-fail reactions to either Jury or Melrose; Agatha, that prize ass we all know somehow; Marshall with his sardonic whimsy; the melancholy, the humor, the irony... the list goes on. The crime seems darker this time; it *is* darker, no doubt about it, and one wonders, as Jury has got to be advancing in years at this point, if he will go out not in a blaze, but in a dark vacuum of some sort... but I hope he goes on forever. Impossible? Nah. "Impossible" is a nobleman who relinquishes his title, yet puts up with a horrid aunt-by-marriage, or a village of quaint characters every one, or a "pleecemun" with the heart of a Jury, or a sidekick with the wisdom of a Wiggins. They must go on forever. I love your other books, Ms. Grimes, but your finest moments are always quite near to Ardry End.

Once again "the game's afoot" in the latest Martha Grimes novel, THE WINDS OF CHANGE. The regulars who comprise her ensemble cast are on hand as Richard Jury, Melrose Plant and Wiggins tackle multiple cases --- the tragedy of a little girl, shot in the head on a North London street; the disappearance of another child three years before in Cornwall; the murder of a woman who was shot with a .22-caliber gun, her body found on the grounds of an estate called "Angel Gate"; and the ongoing investigation of a pedophilia ring, thought to be working out of a house near where the dead little girl was found. Would any of these cases play a role in the other cases at hand, or are they merely coincidences? Jury, like most lawmen, doesn't believe in coincidences.

As if this was not enough to keep Jury and company busy, his only living blood relative, a cousin who lived in Newcastle, dies suddenly. While the two were not really "kissin' cousins," her death has a profound impact on him: "Death had a way of kicking out the props, of smashing one's carefully constructed defenses. It was fine for him to say he saw his cousin seldom and that he wasn't close to her and that, actually, they had never liked each other. That could work in life; it didn't work in death."

The themes of memory and identity are at the core of THE WINDS OF CHANGE. Why is it that too often things are not what they seem, and what we think we remember today has a slightly different caste tomorrow? Jury wrestles with these notions while his old friend, the crusty Commander Macalvie, who brings along the recently promoted DS Cody Platt to help with the investigations, joins him and Melrose Plant. They take over "The Winds of Change ... a pub located in the village of South Petherwin." The questions about memories and identities are not far from Jury's consciousness as he listens to the outline of the now three-year-old disappearance of Flora Baumann and is also filled in on the death of the unknown woman whose body was found on Flora's stepfather's property.

Martha Grimes is a master of her genre and a writer of extraordinary power and imagination. In this, her nineteenth Richard Jury novel, she has produced a literary mystery that will delight lovers of the genre. Readers who enjoy a good tease about where a quote comes from, or what book a character has peeked out of, or allusions to writers and works, will find themselves immersed in literary trivia that will add new depth to the armchair sleuth's enjoyment. Quotes from Shakespeare and Robert Frost to Emily Dickinson's line, "Split the lark and you'll find the music" and Philip Larkin's words, "The trees are coming into leaf/ Like something almost being said", pepper the plot. Grimes repeatedly refers to Henry James's characters, books and style. She inserts and insinuates the names of characters, and shadows well-known plots from other classic writers. Even Brown's Hotel in London and Agatha Christie get the nod in this kaleidoscopic diorama of murder, mayhem and hugger-mugger crime.

The police procedural may never be the same after word gets out about how successful and fulfilling THE WINDS OF CHANGE is as a novel, a mystery, a whodunit, and a pastiche of literary hijinks. The timing of this book's release is also sage since it's far more than a summer fling. Enjoy! (...)

Normally, a book with a pedophilia focus would be too disturbing to read, but being a Grimes fan, I decided to try it anyway. Grimes manages to make this story readable without ignoring the horror of the topic. Most of the book focuses on Jury's search to find the murderer of a child and to solve the (related?) mystery of another child who has been missing for several years. As usual, Grime's writing is fascinating with a complex, twisting plot. You'll laugh at how Lulu (a child) gives Jury and Melrose a hard time; you'll wonder who done it as Grimes presents you with several plausible answers; and you'll experience a "take that!" moment when the good guys score one. Just one quibble: The answer to what happened to the missing child isn't very credible. Jury would have to be less perceptive than we give him credit for in order for the ending to be believable. But the fact is that Grimes has done it again--she's given us another well-written, can't-put-it-down book.

I've read all the Richard Jury mysteries, and most of Martha Grimes other works. This despite the fact that, beginning about 10 years ago, the quality of the books declined steeply. Her large stable of regular characters seemed to be trotted out in each volume just to air them out, most adding little to the substance of the book. Worse, the plots became paper thin, often relying on very shaky devices. In "The Winds of Change" we have three crimes in play, two murders and a disappearance. Not to give the plot away, at the conclusion of the book one realizes that the connection between these crimes is tangential, and that two depend on assumed identities that are incredible.

Martha Grimes still writes well -- her descriptions are evocative, her dialogue crisp, and her regular characters amusing. But for the last decade they seem to be plodding along in very predictable ruts.

So, Ms. Grimes, if you read this, please hear my plea. You must be in your 70s by now, and you really ought to think about giving your stable of characters a proper ending. Have Jury bed the obviously willing Carole-anne (although, since he's a wartime child, meaning he's in his sixties, I don't understand the attraction). Have Melrose set the dogs on his aunt. Have Wiggins the hypochondriac actually get sick and have no one believe him. SOMETHING to bring a little drama to this little set piece. Agatha give a final curtain to her characters; you can too.

I am a great, and by now hungry, fan of the Richard Jury series. When I saw this book finally out in paperback I literally lunged for it. But then it took me far longer to read it than most others in the series. Jury was brooding so much, about having been wounded two books ago, about his bad luck with women, about the death of a cousin he did not even like... Plant was a bit like a fish out of water, and Carole-Anne definitely got on my nerves. I daresay the cat Cyril was my favorite character in this book...
This said, this is not a bad book, even though I guessed a good part of the ending half way through. But let's say that, if I had not been such a staunch fan of Jury already, I probably would not have become one after reading this book.

I can forgive a lot of unrealistic scenarios (such as uncountable rich people that do not ever have to work, aimless conversations about goat names, caricature personalities, and so on), but all these characters with horrible stories about children all in the same book, a Jury that is so perfect and so sad, and a story that wanders too many times far afield do get on my nerves somewhat when I am reading one of my favorite series...

For a while I removed myself from reading Martha Grimes. It seemed she had tired of Richard Jury and Melrose Plant. But then I picked her up again and did a re-read of an old novel. It pushed me back into the bookstore to buy "The Winds of Change" in hardback even!!!! (on my sister's recommendation--it was worth the cover price!) Jury isn't his old self, he's more than his old self. He and Plant have developed, there's more depth there and Jury is even more vulnerable and more 'human' than before. Go back and re-read "The Man With a Load of Mischief" then compare these two novels. The difference is amazing. Grimes has made Jury a little sadder, a bit edgier, something a man his age would come into, we would assume in police work. I hope she hasn't tired of these novels. With this last one, it's like a breath of fresh air. And definitely not a 'chore' by any stretch to get through. Spend the money.