The Dirty Duck by Martha Grimes: A review

The Dirty Duck by Martha Grimes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Superintendent Richard Jury of New Scotland Yard is visiting a friend in Stratford-on-Avon and hoping for an encounter with the intriguing Lady Kennington whom he met in the last book in the series, The Anodyne Necklace. His friend Melrose Plant is in town, too, along with Aunt Agatha, seeing Shakespeare plays and waiting - in Agatha's case - for some visiting cousins from America.

It is summer and the town seems full of visiting Americans, including a group traveling with Honeycutt Tours. This particular group, however, does not stay intact for very long. After having a drink at a pub called "The Dirty Duck" one night, one of the tourists, Gwendolyn Bracegirdle from Sarasota, Florida, is killed in a public restroom behind a church. Her throat is slashed ear to ear and another slash rents the body from sternum to pelvis. There are no clues and Miss Bracegirdle was a quiet sort who did not seem to have any enemies.

The local constabulary take advantage of the fact that they have a Scotland Yard Superintendent in town and ask for his help in investigating. Jury reluctantly agrees - without informing his superiors in London.

Soon, though, all of the police have as much as they can handle because a second member of the tour, a seventeen-year-old beauty from Georgia named Honey Belle, is killed in the same manner. There doesn't seem to be anything to connect the two victims other than the fact that they were both with the same tour group.

Meanwhile, another member of the group, a young boy, has gone missing. He is Honey Belle's stepbrother, James. He has been known to disappear and reappear before so no one is concerned at first, but days go by and he doesn't turn up. It appears the police may have a kidnapping on their hands in addition to two murders.

But that is not to be the end of it all. Honey Belle's mother, James' stepmother, makes a trip to London and there she, too, is killed in the same way as the other two women. As the body total climbs, Jury gets assistance from D.S. Wiggins and his friend Melrose as they race to find a murderer, a missing boy, and attempt to protect the other members of the tour group who may be in danger.

Finally, a man on the tour, a Christopher Marlowe fanatic, is also killed - once again by being slashed. It seems the killer may be branching out from targeting only women.

After the last killing, Jury begins to put it all together. He develops a theory that perhaps only one of the victims was a true target and the others were only window dressing. Red herrings, as it were. The trick is to figure out which one was the target. That may lead him to the motive and to the murderer.

The Dirty Duck is another wonderful stroll through the villages of England and, in this case, along the streets of London as well. It is written with Grimes' typical light touch and is full of interesting characters, which, of course, include a couple of charming and precocious kids and a couple of cats who play their roles. It is a lovely lazy summer read that whets the appetite for more in this series. I suspect I'll be cracking open the next Richard Jury novel on my Kindle very soon.

View all my reviews

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

Search This Blog