"Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard seems to constantly be meeting beautiful women to whom he is instantly attracted, but the attraction never goes anywhere. The women never stick. That's true again in Jerusalem Inn, but at least this time the beautiful woman has a good reason for not pursuing a relationship. She's dead.Jury meets the lovely Helen Minton in a snow-covered graveyard in the Newcastle village of Washington at Christmastime. He has taken days off to spend Christmas with his cousin's family in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and, delaying the inevitability of their company on a afternoon, is taking a walk in the graveyard when he comes upon Helen. She seems unwell and he walks her back to her home and makes a date to have dinner with her. But, on the appointed day, when he goes to collect her at the Old Hall museum where she works, he finds the local police already there. Helen Minton has been discovered dead.She had a heart condition and at first it appears that her death may have been due to natural causes, but a postmortem confirms that she was poisoned. Jury sets off through the snowbound countryside to find her only known relative, a cousin who is in a nearby village. Meanwhile, his aristocratic frequent sidekick, Melrose Plant, is already headed for that same village, along with Aunt Agatha and Vivian Rivington, one of Jury's previous "beautiful women who didn't stick." Melrose, Agatha, and Vivian are going to a Christmas house party at a famous critic's house, along with a number of writers and artists. Tensions are apparent from the beginning among the various house partiers, but who would ever guess that those tensions would end in murder? Well, only someone reading a Martha Grimes cozy mystery perhaps.Soon, a thoroughly disliked member of the party is found dead in the snow, having been shot, and Jury and the local constabulary, as well as Melrose Plant, seek the murderer. But was this murder somehow related to the murder of Helen Minton and why does the critic's wife seem to be fading fast? Another case of poisoning perhaps?Well, we can be sure, of course, that Superintendent Jury will make all the necessary connections and that murder will out and justice be served. In a manner of speaking anyway.This series is a fun and light read, not at all taxing for a hot summer day. All problems are solved and inconvenient facts are swept under the rug by the ending. And the handsome Richard Jury who is always very attractive to the women and young girls in his cases still hasn't found a woman who'll stick. ""It is five days before Christmas and Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury is taking a short, much-needed vacation. On his way to the Newcastle area, he plans to spend a bit of holiday time with what little family he has remaining. Stopping in the village of Washington Old Town to stretch his legs, he spots an intriguing figure in the cemetery, jotting down information from a gravestone.As he moves closer, Jury sees that the figure is a woman, beautiful, about his age, and physically ill. This illness is clearly not the average winter flu or even similar to his sergeant’s prodigious hypochondria. What Jury observes is bone deep and Helen Minton confesses to a heart condition.Jury and Helen, immediately attracted to each other, spend the afternoon engaged in light conversation and having a bit of tea. Making a dinner date with Helen for the next evening, Jury travels on to his cousin’s place. The next day, following festivities with the family, Jury heads back to the Washington Old Hall where Helen volunteers as a docent and where he is to meet her for their date.When he arrives to find police swarming about the place, Jury learns that Helen has been found dead in an upstairs bedroom, apparently the victim of a heart attack. But when the physical evidence doesn’t quite fit death by natural causes, murder may well be on the table.The local constabulary reluctantly agrees to give Jury access to their findings. They don’t really want Scotland Yard anywhere near their patch, but, since Jury knew the victim, they realize that even a slight bit of cooperation is better that having the case hijacked completely. A quick call to the Yard confirms Jury’s homicide/CID status and also confirms his reputation as a hound that will quietly worry a bone until the last drop of marrow gives up its hold.And quietly worry that bone he does. Playing on the oft times need of isolated villagers to know everything about everyone, Jury ferrets out Helen’s movements and contacts for the last few months. A trip to her primary residence in London reveals salient facts about her family history and her schooling. All those facts lead Jury back to that graveyard, to a local orphanage and to a backwoods pub known as the Jerusalem Inn.At the Inn, Jury finds a retarded youth with the same unusual last name as that on the gravestone. And he finds Melrose Plant chaperoning a teenage pool shark back in the snooker room of the pub. It seems Melrose and his entourage are spending Christmas just down the road at Spinneyton Abbey.Jury arranges to join Plant back at the Abbey, but by the time he arrives, Melrose has found another body. Jury also finds that the lady of the manor exhibits identical physical symptoms to those Helen displayed. And, for the final discovery of the evening, he finds Helen’s cousin, her only known remaining relative, to be a visitor at the abbey also. With too many coincidences on his hands, Jury, with Plant’s assistance, begins worrying the bone even harder.Martha Grimes presents us, in this 5th book of her Jury series, a literary mystery rather than an action adventure or strict police procedural. We get detailed and intimate looks into both Jury and Plant before the murders are discovered as well as during the investigative stages. We learn more about the source of Jury’s chronic depression, a source that actually resonates with the circumstances surrounding Helen Minton’s murder. We get to smile and snicker and practically guffaw as we read Melrose Plant’s internal monologues. His snark, his sarcasm and his repartee are natural and rooted in pragmatism rather than meanness. But it is his uncanny observational skills that feed the repartee and the internal thoughts and thus feed Jury some quite important clues.The vocabulary and sentence structure of Grimes’ novels are definitely upper echelon. There are a multitude of literary and artistic references to Greek and Roman mythology and to classic texts of the 1800’s and prior. These references come with very little explanatory background, so the reader has to make the choice of pushing past them or spending a bit of time with a dictionary and Google. The first choice leaves the reader with a fuzzy feeling as the clues to the murder are often wrapped inside the literary references. The second choice slows down the reading experience and breaks the train of thought. However, since Grimes definitely writes in a style where attention to detail is a must, the decision to re-read scenes and pull up the reference sites is probably the better choice.And, as with most literary mysteries, the reader will not find in this book casual romances or explicit sexual situations. The fact that neither Jury nor Plant have ever married, that neither are currently in a relationship and that both are despairing of ever finding that kind of love is a strong part of this storyline. And the fact that it is Christmas makes their respective situations worse."
This is the one Ed gave me in Boston, because of its "Newcastle connection". In fact none of it takes place in Newcastle (the main character is trying to get there for Christmas much of the time). It's Grimes' fifth novel, my first of hers, and, despite what follows, I'll read more. Since Ed is an anachronism and culture glitch sleuth, here are a few that I found: sorry, Ed, but she reads as if she thinks anything north of Hampstead Heath is "Here be Dragons" territory. Sure, some of her more egregious nobs say that sort of thing, but she reveals it in her own assumptions too. The setting is County Durham, but with an accent that's quite different from Geordie in its mix of vowels and intonation - halfway between the two I know best myself: N Yorkshire and Newcastle . Grimes does a rotten job of trying to catch it (I'll put in a sample when I have the book handy), and I constantly asked myself why on earth she tried. The worst examples were put in the mouths of a few locals. Everyone has accents, so why try to convey only these? Accent = dumb-yokel-for-flavor, apparently. (19th century linguistic Naturalism had its limits, even then.) The poofie (but accentless) aristocrats that she wastes one whole chapter on (exchanging mindless, plot-retarding banter in a sort of humorless PG Wodehouse style) sound like something out of the another century, not the meritocratic 1980s (and I knew a few poofie aristocrats in the 60s!). Her dialogue is good, though, barring a couple of "I guesses" (an Americanism still at that time) and an 'out the door' (likewise, still, in England (not Scotland)), and a reference to the Gibson Girls. Oh, and the usual problems with Brit honorifics - the Queen is not Her Royal Highness (them's princesses).The plot's good - as the critics said, all very Christie-Allinghamy - drawing rooms and sequestered suspects and all. The denouement was a bit rushed, but she wouldn't be the first to do that (Think Smylla's Sense of Snow, for a really, really badly rushed ending)
What do You think about Jerusalem Inn (2004)?
A well done and somewhat surprising thriller. Jury started out a rather wretched character, visiting his only family, a cousin, for Christmas in the north, and meeting another woeful soul in a cemetery. And while they hit it off (apparently misery loves company) she ends up dead when he goes to pick her up for Christmas dinner. Surprisingly, once he stops moping around and feeling sorry for himself, he actually seems to be in a fairly good mood. Once Melrose, Vivian and Agatha show up the pacing seems to pick up. I liked the story, but some of the characters seemed so underdeveloped they could have been completely left out. While some of the plot was quite transparent I was surprised at who the responsible was.There were a couple of quibbles I had though. One of the police officers wanted to run a ballistics test on a .410 shotgun. Not sure what the point of that would be, as it isn't rifled so won't have any striations on the projectile. Another small quibble is that dawn was around 7 AM, which seems a little early for late December.The hardcover was formatted well with no obvious spelling/grammatical errors.
—Kamas Kirian
It is five days before Christmas and Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury is taking a short, much-needed vacation. On his way to the Newcastle area, he plans to spend a bit of holiday time with what little family he has remaining. Stopping in the village of Washington Old Town to stretch his legs, he spots an intriguing figure in the cemetery, jotting down information from a gravestone.As he moves closer, Jury sees that the figure is a woman, beautiful, about his age, and physically ill. This illness is clearly not the average winter flu or even similar to his sergeant’s prodigious hypochondria. What Jury observes is bone deep and Helen Minton confesses to a heart condition.Jury and Helen, immediately attracted to each other, spend the afternoon engaged in light conversation and having a bit of tea. Making a dinner date with Helen for the next evening, Jury travels on to his cousin’s place. The next day, following festivities with the family, Jury heads back to the Washington Old Hall where Helen volunteers as a docent and where he is to meet her for their date.When he arrives to find police swarming about the place, Jury learns that Helen has been found dead in an upstairs bedroom, apparently the victim of a heart attack. But when the physical evidence doesn’t quite fit death by natural causes, murder may well be on the table.The local constabulary reluctantly agrees to give Jury access to their findings. They don’t really want Scotland Yard anywhere near their patch, but, since Jury knew the victim, they realize that even a slight bit of cooperation is better that having the case hijacked completely. A quick call to the Yard confirms Jury’s homicide/CID status and also confirms his reputation as a hound that will quietly worry a bone until the last drop of marrow gives up its hold.And quietly worry that bone he does. Playing on the oft times need of isolated villagers to know everything about everyone, Jury ferrets out Helen’s movements and contacts for the last few months. A trip to her primary residence in London reveals salient facts about her family history and her schooling. All those facts lead Jury back to that graveyard, to a local orphanage and to a backwoods pub known as the Jerusalem Inn.At the Inn, Jury finds a retarded youth with the same unusual last name as that on the gravestone. And he finds Melrose Plant chaperoning a teenage pool shark back in the snooker room of the pub. It seems Melrose and his entourage are spending Christmas just down the road at Spinneyton Abbey.Jury arranges to join Plant back at the Abbey, but by the time he arrives, Melrose has found another body. Jury also finds that the lady of the manor exhibits identical physical symptoms to those Helen displayed. And, for the final discovery of the evening, he finds Helen’s cousin, her only known remaining relative, to be a visitor at the abbey also. With too many coincidences on his hands, Jury, with Plant’s assistance, begins worrying the bone even harder.Martha Grimes presents us, in this 5th book of her Jury series, a literary mystery rather than an action adventure or strict police procedural. We get detailed and intimate looks into both Jury and Plant before the murders are discovered as well as during the investigative stages. We learn more about the source of Jury’s chronic depression, a source that actually resonates with the circumstances surrounding Helen Minton’s murder. We get to smile and snicker and practically guffaw as we read Melrose Plant’s internal monologues. His snark, his sarcasm and his repartee are natural and rooted in pragmatism rather than meanness. But it is his uncanny observational skills that feed the repartee and the internal thoughts and thus feed Jury some quite important clues.The vocabulary and sentence structure of Grimes’ novels are definitely upper echelon. There are a multitude of literary and artistic references to Greek and Roman mythology and to classic texts of the 1800’s and prior. These references come with very little explanatory background, so the reader has to make the choice of pushing past them or spending a bit of time with a dictionary and Google. The first choice leaves the reader with a fuzzy feeling as the clues to the murder are often wrapped inside the literary references. The second choice slows down the reading experience and breaks the train of thought. However, since Grimes definitely writes in a style where attention to detail is a must, the decision to re-read scenes and pull up the reference sites is probably the better choice.And, as with most literary mysteries, the reader will not find in this book casual romances or explicit sexual situations. The fact that neither Jury nor Plant have ever married, that neither are currently in a relationship and that both are despairing of ever finding that kind of love is a strong part of this storyline. And the fact that it is Christmas makes their respective situations worse.So if you are a reader who needs a Christmas mystery to be full of spritely angels, sparkly decorations, fresh snow, good cheer, heart-warming relationships and a rosy happy ending, don’t read this one. All you will get is the snow.
—Patricia
This is the fifth in the series about Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard. It's another formulaic murder mystery with quirky characters and, of course, a precocious child (Chrissie) involved. It's Christmas time, and Jury is on his way to Newcastle to visit a cousin when he stops and ends up in a graveyard. There he meets a woman, Helen Minton, he is quite attracted to, and which he plans to meet later for dinner; but when he shows up she is dead. His aristocratic sidekick in these books is Melrose Plant and he and Vivian Rivington (a poet) have been invited to Spinney Abbey for an artsy weekend and get snowbound with the assembled eccentric guests. He is persuaded one night to put on snow skis and make a secret trip to a pub called the Jerusalem Inn. There he encounters Jury whose investigation has lead him there also. When they arrive back at Spinney Abbey where Jury would like to talk to the guests, they discover another woman has been murdered.Lots of characters in this book. There's Lady Assington and her doctor husband; Beatrice Sleight who writes books; Edward Parmenger who is a painter; Charles and Grace Seaingham, the host (an art critic) and hostess (she's perfect and sickly); Tommy Whittaker, a skilled snooker player, and his aunt Elizabeth St. Leger; William MacQuade, another author; and, of course, Melrose's obnoxious Aunt Agatha who has wormed her way into the party. And many more... Jury also enlists the aid of hypochondriac Detective Alfred Wiggins to help him solve the case.For me, the ending was unsatisfactory and abrupt. I needed some of the loose ends tied up more neatly. The mystery is convoluted tho, and I never guessed who the murderer was. There's also the clever repartee between Melrose and everybody else! Just an OK read.
—Dyana
