The Stargazey by Martha Grimes

Description

Bibliographic Details

• Author: Martha Grimes
• Title: The Stargazey (A Richard Jury Mystery)
• Publisher: ‎ Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
• Publication Date: November 5, 1998
• Language: ‎ English
• Format: Hardcover – 354 pages‏
• ISBN-10: ‎ 080505622X
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0805056228
• Item Weight: ‎ 1.05 pounds
• Dimensions: ‎ 6.38 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches
• Book Condition: Used – Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Synopsis:

November. in a bleak month, a bleak Richard Jury takes an aimless ride on one of London's icons–the old double-decker bus, a # 14 traveling the Fulham Road. His attention is caught by a woman "with hair so gossamer-pale you could see the moon through it," wearing a fur coat, boarding his bus in front of a pub called the Stargazey. Her behavior intrigues him, as she leaves, reboards, and leaves the bus again. Jury follows her to the gates of Fulham Palace–but only to the gates. There he stops. Later he wonders if the death in the walled garden of Fulham Palace could have been averted if he had gone in…

And if this precipitated still another death in a London club named Boring's, which is Melrose Plant's crusty old men's club. Before Jury and Plant work out the connection between these killings, they are both helped and hindered by Martha Grimes' usual band of eccentrics: Theo Wrenn Browne, trying to shut down the Long Pidd library; the Cripps family trying to shut down civilization; and Diane Demorney, the new horoscope columnist for the Sidbury Star, trying to shut down the heavens.

About the Author:

Martha Grimes (born May 2, 1931) is an American writer of detective fiction. She is best known for a series featuring Richard Jury, a Scotland Yard inspector, and Melrose Plant, an aristocrat turned amateur sleuth.

Grimes was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to William Dermit Grimes, Pittsburgh's city solicitor, and June Dunnington, who owned the Mountain Lake Hotel in Western Maryland, where Martha and her brother spent much of their childhood. Grimes earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland and did postgraduate work at the University of Iowa. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Frostburg State University, and Montgomery College (Takoma Park).

In 1983, Grimes received the Nero Wolfe Award for best mystery of the year for The Anodyne Necklace. In 2012, Grimes was named Grand Master by the Edgar Awards Mystery Writers of America.

Grimes initially became known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub.

Her Emma Graham quartet of novels beginning with Hotel Paradise is set in an atmospheric aging lake resort in western Maryland, and delves into mysteries of past secrets and human nature. The background of the series draws from the experiences that she enjoyed while spending summers at her mother's hotel in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. One of the characters, Mr. Britten, is drawn on Britten Leo Martin Sr., who then ran Martin's Store, which he owned with his father and brother. Martin's Store is accessible by a short walkway from the Mountain Lake Hotel, the site of the former hotel, which was torn down in 1967.

The two Andi Oliver novels center on a young drifter with amnesia, making her way in the northern U.S. Midwest armed with a strong sense of right and wrong and great compassion. Grimes has donated a large portion of her profits from these novels to animal-protection organizations.

Grimes lives in Bethesda, Maryland and is a vegetarian.