Check out the Edgar Nominees if you are so inclined. The winners of the 2012 Edgars, given by the Mystery Writers of America, will be announced on April 26th. Individual categories include: Novel, First Novel, Paperback Original, Fact Crime, Juvenile, Young Adult, Play, TV Story, and more. Grand Master this year is Martha Grimes! Check out the intro to her website. It's quite interesting!

Hotel Paradise (1996)

Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It is quite a feat to write honestly from a child's point of view, even one who is observant and perceptive. Emma, who is twelve years old, lives with her mother and other staff who run the Paradise Hotel ("an old summer hotel") that has seen better days. She becomes fascinated with the death of another twelve year old girl who died mysteriously many years earlier and begins investigating in her own unique style. Someone pointed out that this was as much a coming of age novel as a mystery story.

As always, Martha Grimes writes, in quotable style, of singular characters and places we all want to visit. It turns out that she based this story, in part, on her own childhood experiences spending summers at her mother's hotel in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. The hotel was torn down in 1967.

There are actually three books in the Emma Graham mystery series and luckily I started with the first. Others are Cold Flat Junction (2000) and Belle Ruin (2005).

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The Black Cat (2010)

Right in the middle of everything else I was reading and doing, the library called to let me know that my name had come up on the list for Martha Grimes's most recent Richard Jury mystery, The Black Cat. What could I do? I put everything else aside and read the book in just a couple of days.

What I have always loved about the Richard Jury mysteries is the cast of surrounding characters whose roles can change from plot to plot. Introduced in The Old Wine Shades, Harry Johnson and Mungo are back. I don't think there is a single title that doesn't feature intelligent and precocious children in some way. Some might be thrown off by the involvement of the animals but it is something you come to expect with the stories and learn to enjoy.

Three young women, who work for three escort services, are murdered. Where's the link? Is it the designer shoes? And what happened to the cat? A fine summer read.

The Old Wine Shades (2006)

The Old Wine Shades by Martha Grimes


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
An unusual entry in the Richard Jury series seems to have incensed many readers and left them wondering what Martha Grimes was thinking. I was totally taken by surprise since I found it a clever, fascinating, and well plotted story worthy of the series. The ending may not be what readers were looking for but it was probably more realistic than we would like to think.

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Lamorna Wink by Martha Grimes (1999)

I remember that I lost my initial infatuation with Martha Grimes and her Richard Jury mysteries at some point years ago and then picked one up later and once again was pleased. Recently the library was getting rid of The Lamorna Wink so I thought it was time to see what was going on with Jury and his friends.

Surprisingly it is aristocratic Melrose Plant who has traveled to the Cornwell coast while Superintendent Jury is away. His delight in meeting the people in the area draws the reader in. Magic enters the plot through the remarkable young man, Johnny Wells, who's Aunt Chris suddenly disappears. Melrose is intrigued and decides to rent the magnificent cliff home where two young children drowned in the recent past. How all these unconnected strands of story finally converge is satisfying. AND you want to find the next

This is a series that benefits by being read more or less in order. There are 21 titles and The Lamorna Wink is number 16. The characters reoccur and it helps to explain some of the nonsense and humor that Grimes injects into her stories. It has been stated that she has a way of combining humor with shock and the playfulness of this story gives way to an awful unpleasantness at the end.

If you haven't discovered Martha Grimes, you have a wonderful reading experience waiting. If you have read some of these titles, then you know they are all pub names!

1. The Man With A Load Of Mischief
2. The Old Fox Deceiv'd
3. The Anodyne Necklace
4. The Dirty Duck
5. Jerusalem Inn
6. Deer Leap
7. Help The Poor Struggler
8. I Am The Only Running Footman
9. The Five Bells and Bladebone
10. The Old Silent
11. The Old Contemptibles
12. The Horse You Came In On
13. Rainbow's End
14. The Case Has Altered
15. The Stargazey
16. The Lamorna Wink
17. The Blue Last
18. The Grave Maurice
19. The Winds of Change
20. The Old Wine Shades
21. Dust