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The Old Contemptibles (Richard Jury #11) Paperback | Pages: 359 pages
Rating: 4 | 3507 Users | 136 Reviews

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Original Title: The Old Contemptibles
ISBN: 0451412133 (ISBN13: 9780451412133)
Edition Language: English
Series: Richard Jury #11
Characters: Melrose Plant, Richard Jury, Pete Apted, Jane Holdsworth, Millie, Alex Holdsworth, Charley Moss, Carole-anne Palutski
Setting: United Kingdom

Chronicle In Pursuance Of Books The Old Contemptibles (Richard Jury #11)

When the woman with whom Richard Jury is engaged in a passionate affair is found dead of a barbiturate overdose in her flat, it seems that Jury's famously bad luck with women has reached its nadir. Since the death is considered "suspicious," Scotland Yard investigates, and since, because of his relationship with her, Jury is considered a possible suspect, he is suspended from the force. Unable to participate himself, he deploys his friend Melrose Plant to go to the woman's family home in the Lake District and go undercover to find out what he can about their relationships.

The fabulously wealthy Plant impersonates a down-at-heels librarian who hires himself out to the family in order to catalog and organize their library. He is soon discovering all kinds of interesting things about the family.

For one thing, this family seems extraordinarily unlucky. They have suffered four suspicious deaths in a period of five or six years. One was definitely a suicide and the latest one, who is the widow of the suicide, may be also. But the other two deaths were put down as accidents. Melrose suspects something more sinister.

We have most of the usual characters that we've come to care about, but also there are a dismaying number of characters either in or somehow connected to the family and it is hard to keep them all straight. Too, it is hard to get much more than a very passing sense of who they are and what their motives might be.

As usual, we can depend on Grimes giving us charming children characters who are usually much smarter and more accomplished than the adults in their lives. In this instance, we have the teenage son of Jury's dead paramour and an eleven-year-old girl named Millie who has a black cat named Sorcerer. (Yes, we can depend on having a perspicacious animal involved as well.) Grimes clearly has a soft spot for such characters and they are always lovingly drawn.

She also gives us the curmudgeonly patriarch of the family - the one with all the money - who chooses to live in a retirement home rather than with his family, most members of whom he doesn't like much. He does like and value Alex, the paramour's son, and Millie. He has some interesting friends that we get to know at the retirement home, especially one named Lady Cray who plays an important role in the ending, where rough justice is efficiently dispensed.

I do enjoy Grimes' writing. In general, it is very crisp. Her plots flow (seemingly) effortlessly and, based on her output, she seems to have an inexhaustible supply of them.

That being said, I thought this book was just a bit weak. Part of the problem, I think, was the plethora of characters and being unable to really home in on the most important ones. I can usually figure out whodunit from the clues scattered throughout, but I didn't get this one, and even after the denouement, I found it a bit confusing.

But I did like Millie and Sorcerer.

Mention Regarding Books The Old Contemptibles (Richard Jury #11)

Title:The Old Contemptibles (Richard Jury #11)
Author:Martha Grimes
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:Deluxe Edition
Pages:Pages: 359 pages
Published:April 4th 2006 by Onyx Books (first published December 12th 1991)
Categories:Mystery. Fiction. Crime

Rating Regarding Books The Old Contemptibles (Richard Jury #11)
Ratings: 4 From 3507 Users | 136 Reviews

Crit Regarding Books The Old Contemptibles (Richard Jury #11)
My, my. The ending left me with my jaw hanging open. "Slimy, yet satisfying," as Pumbaa would say. My thoughts exactly.

The true mystery of this book is twofold... (1) How it ever got published at all. Its a story that could be told in maybe 50 pages, but she padded it out to 330. I know this is the 11th book in the series, but there is far too much rubbish in this book about, what I assume are, reoccurring characters. It rambles. Some of the writing is not good. I had to many read sentences multiple times to figure out what was meant. In my opinion, her publisher really turned a blind eye to a lot of sloppy work

Part of the Richard Jury series. Scotland Yard detective, Jury falls head over heels for a woman he meets at a neighborhood, antique/jumble sale and is on the list of suspects when she is possibly murdered...or is it suicide? His friend, Melrose Plant tries to get to the bottom of a very tangled mystery. As with other Martha Grimes books, the plot is littered with unforgettable characters. In this case: the woman's son Alex, a horserace hustler; his 11 year old friend, Millie, an extraordinary

Martha Grimes continues to do all the things needed for 5 Stars from this reader: Wonderful characters, creative plot, and the entertaining dialogue I have come to absolutely love. This novel comes with an unnerving twist, the absence of the main character for a full 1/3 of the book. Also featured, a whopper of an ending. Almost Agatha Christie-like. Id give six stars if I could. The Old Contemptibles is a clear favorite.

**MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD *** Was pleased and relieved that this little gem had a more satisfying ending than some of the others in the Jury series - looking at you, The Grave Maurice and The Lamorna Wink (both of which kept me riveted but had rather nauseating "bummer" endings that were not particularly plausible or satisfying - Lamorna was shudder-worthy and, well, just revolting). This one, while keeping some of the standard Grimes elements - precocious kids, clever animals - doesn't go all grim

I liked it but I thought the woman they killed off was kind of a dopey character. Fortunately, she has a really interesting son who carries the day in this novel.

I read this book before, twenty-some years ago when it first came out, but I didn't remember any of the plot. In the end, I really liked this book. But at the start, I was a little put off by it. It seemed like a recycled storyline; Richard Jury meets a girl, develops an emotional attachment to her and shortly thereafter she ends up dead. The first third of the book I found wanting. The story seemed to develop a little slowly and the plot seemed to similar to Jerusalem Inn and while I liked the