The Old Success

by Martha Grimes

Overview

When the body of a French woman washes up on a wild inlet off the Cornish coast, Brian Macalvie, divisional commander with the Devon-Cornwall police is called in. Who could have killed this beautiful tourist, the only visible footprints nearby belonging to the two little girls who found her?

While Macalvie stands in the Scilly Islands, inspector Richard Jury–twenty miles away on Land’s End—is at The Old Success pub, sharing a drink with the legendary former CID detective Tom Brownell, a man renowned for solving every case he undertook. Except one.

In the days following the mysterious slaying of the Parisian tourist, two other murders take place: first, a man is shot on a Northhamptonshire estate, then a holy duster turns up murdered at Exeter Cathedral in Devon. Macalvie, Jury and Bronwell set out to discover whether these three killings, though very different in execution, are connected. Written with Grimes’s signature wit, sly plotting, and gloriously offbeat characters, The Old Success is prime fare from “one of the most fascinating mystery writers today” (Houston Chronicle).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802148995
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	10/22/2020
Series:	Richard Jury Series , #25
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	178,062
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Martha Grimes is the bestselling author of more than thirty books, twenty-five of them featuring Richard Jury. The recipient of the 2012 Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, Grimes lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

Hometown:

Washington, DC and Santa Fe, NM

Date of Birth:

May 2, 1931

Place of Birth:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Education:

B.A., M.A., University of Maryland

Website:

http://www.marthagrimes.com

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Knowledge:

"Martha Grimes delivers an outstanding police procedural...Readers will find it hard to put the book down; all will be drawn in from the first sentence. This may be Martha Grimes’ finest Richard Jury mystery to date." —Bookreporter

“Jury’s investigation centers on gem smuggling, tax dodging, and greed. The real mystery is how to find a cab drivers’ pub, the Knowledge, so secret that even Scotland Yard can’t force its patrons to reveal its location . . . Readers will appreciate the elements that have made this a long-running bestselling series, notably a complicated case and distinctive characters.”—Publishers Weekly

“Grimes’ twenty-fourth mystery starring Richard Jury gets off to a breakneck start . . . Jury’s devoted readership will find much to enjoy.”—Booklist

Praise for Martha Grimes and the Richard Jury mystery series:

“Delightful, surprising, even magical. They begin as police procedurals—someone is murdered, Jury investigates—but Grimes’s love of the offbeat, the whimsical and the absurd makes them utterly unlike anyone else’s detective novels . . . Although Grimes is American she has a wicked eye for English eccentricity . . . Original, civilized and witty novels that . . . truly are novel and, once come upon, they can become necessary.”—Washington Post, on Dust

“Delicious . . . A prime example of Grimes’ skill at balancing the serious with the lighthearted . . . Jury and his posse are terrific companions . . . Delightful.”—Seattle Times, on Vertigo 42

“Intricate and entertaining . . . A delicious puzzle.”—Boston Globe, on The Horse You Came In On

“Wondrously eccentric characters . . . The details are divine.”—New York Times Book Review, on The Stargazey

“Swift and satisfying . . . grafts the old-fashioned ‘Golden Age’ amateur-detective story to the contemporary police procedural . . . real charm.”—Wall Street Journal, on The Lamorna Wink

“The literary equivalent of a box of Godiva truffles . . . Wonderful.”—Los Angeles Times, on The Stargazey

“Witty, atmospheric mysteries . . . Simply heaven.”—Denver Post, on The Stargazey

“Read any one [of her novels] and you’ll want to read them all.”—Chicago Tribune

“Grimes is not the next Dorothy Sayers, not the next Agatha Christie. She is better than both.”—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Grimes is superlative at describing the physical world . . . And, when Grimes takes us into interiors, whether it’s a posh country home or a down-at-the-heels flat, she is like Dickens in linking human character to habitat . . . A stellar series.”—Kirkus Reviews, on Vertigo 42

From the Publisher

10/28/2019

The discovery of the body of a French tourist, washed up on one of the Isles of Scilly off the Cornish coast, kicks off MWA Grand Master Grimes’s entertaining, if sometimes befuddling, 25th mystery featuring Scotland Yard Supt. Richard Jury (after 2018’s The Knowledge). Soon afterward, a man is killed on an East Midlands estate—possibly by his wife, who admits only to shooting him in the leg—and a woman is gunned down inside Exeter Cathedral. Jury and his eccentric pal, Melrose Plant, plus handfuls of detectives from the far-flung crime scenes, attempt to discern what, if anything, connects these murders. Jury and company travel around England by boat, plane, helicopter, and car in search of answers, with occasional breaks for a drink in places such as the Old Success Pub in Land’s End. Never mind the difficulty of keeping track of the large cast and the complicated plot, witty dialogue keeps the action moving to the satisfying conclusion. Series fans and newcomers alike will have fun. Agent: Steve Sheppard, Cowan, Debaets, Abrahams & Sheppard. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

03/01/2019

Three mysteries plague Scotland Yard detective Richard Jury, here joined by Brian Macalvie of the Devon-Cornwall police: a French tourist is found dead on an inlet's wet sands, a man lies murdered at his Devon estate, and another lies in Exeter Cathedral. The 25th Richard Jury book, with the title again taken from a pub featured herein.

Library Journal