- Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Ballantine Books; First THUS edition (July 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0345394267
- ISBN-13: 978-0345394262
- Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 2.3 x 17.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 916,540 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
"Once again, Grimes hooks her readers with the engaging Jury and friends and with skillful tucking of hints into unexpected corners."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
When three women die of "natural causes" in London and the West Country, there appears to be no connection--or reason to suspect foul play. But Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury has other ideas, and before long he's following his keen police instincts all the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
There, in the company of a brooding thirteen-year-old girl and her pet coyote, he mingles with an odd assortment of characters and tangles with a twisted plot that stretches from England to the American Southwest. And while his good friend Melrose Plant pursues inquiries in London, Jury delves deeper into the more baffling elements of the case, discovering firsthand what the guide books don't tell you: that the Land of Enchantment is also a landscape ripe with tragedy, treachery, and murder.
"RAINBOW'S END is itself a literary rainbow. It's the skillful blend of mystery and comedy and pathos, a Martha Grimes trademark, that makes this visit with Richard Jury and company so memorable and satisfying."
--Mostly Murder
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
When three women die of "natural causes" in London and the West Country, there appears to be no connection--or reason to suspect foul play. But Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury has other ideas, and before long he's following his keen police instincts all the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
There, in the company of a brooding thirteen-year-old girl and her pet coyote, he mingles with an odd assortment of characters and tangles with a twisted plot that stretches from England to the American Southwest. And while his good friend Melrose Plant pursues inquiries in London, Jury delves deeper into the more baffling elements of the case, discovering firsthand what the guide books don't tell you: that the Land of Enchantment is also a landscape ripe with tragedy, treachery, and murder.
"RAINBOW'S END is itself a literary rainbow. It's the skillful blend of mystery and comedy and pathos, a Martha Grimes trademark, that makes this visit with Richard Jury and company so memorable and satisfying."
--Mostly Murder
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
He could work out how the men went about it, but how about the women? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
He could work out how the men went about it, but how about the women? Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is only the second book I have read by Grimes, but I am hooked enough to want to read more. The action of the book takes place in Britain and in the American South-west; the characters are already familiar, old friends from the first book I read. Grimes' characters are memorable and well-portrayed, her plots are good enough to make you want to keep guessing and not skip to the end. Her description of a dysfunctional British family is horribly funny. But - and there has to be a but - is she playing with us, the readers, or is she more naive than she should be? The blurbs say her books are accurate and well-researched, but the England she writes about, supposedly of the eighties and nineties, has not existed since the fifties, and then only in country house plays and novels. If her main character, Richard Jury, really remembers being a child in WWII, then shouldn't he have drawn a pension by now and retired gracefully from Scotland Yard, let alone from the yearning pursuit of aristocratic ladies?
It's many years since British policemen wore black mackintoshes and drove black police cars, and there are very few shops left of the quaintly old-fashioned type she describes.Anachronisms abound -maybe this is intentional, having fun with the reader. Reading Martha Grimes books, however, is fun, and who could, or should, ask for more?
It's many years since British policemen wore black mackintoshes and drove black police cars, and there are very few shops left of the quaintly old-fashioned type she describes.Anachronisms abound -maybe this is intentional, having fun with the reader. Reading Martha Grimes books, however, is fun, and who could, or should, ask for more?
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read several of the Richard Jury novels years ago, I remembered why I stopped reading them when I started this one - chosen solely because I'm an English reader travelling to Santa Fe for the first time soon.
The chronological background of the book is ridiculous. It was written in the 1990's and is meant to be a contemporary setting, yet doesn't even remotely resemble the England I've lived in for the past 50 years. For example, there haven't been sweet shops such as the one she describes since the 1930's.
Richard Jury was supposedly a schoolboy during World War II, a fact made much of during the story. Even in the mid-1990's he'd be knocking on towards 60. The English part of the story is people with aristos and the gentility who mock the `ways' of the common folk, views which the reader seems to be expected to share. If it's meant as parody, it singularly fails to convince. If the book had been set in the 1920's the attitudes towards class of its characters might be more believable. Indeed, many of the 'characters' are merely ludicrous caricatures - e.g. the 'loveable'(read *very* sub-Dickensian, & wouldn't be out of place in a poor Dicken's knock-off 150 years ago) cockney-rogue family with a baby named Robespierre are deeply irritating, and their antics farcical. Perhaps the book - and this is true of the other Grimes crime I have read - is aiming for the surreal, but all it arouses in this reader is perplexity and irritation. Frankly, to portray England as like this in the 1990's is silly. I don't read mysteries for the realism or the social analysis, I read to escape, but if the writer wants me to suspend disbelief she had better make a *bit* more of an effort not to get her setting so wildly incorrect.
The book also features two child-characters, one carried over from a previous book, both annoying rather than endearing or intriguing, which was apparently the intention.
I couldn't wait to finish it, and I mean that in the worst possible way.
Oh - the plot. The solution to the crime was obvious well before the end - and well before Richard Jury eventually tumbled to it - and it wasn't very original or clever, either, despite all the attempts at befuzzlement and mystification.
This book and series, though purportedly set in the UK, is certainly not meant for anyone who knows anything about us!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Great Performance by Tim Curry!
28 Nov 1999
This mystery, another in the installment of books featuring Inspector Richard Jury is quite fascinating. What could an American woman found dead at Old Sarum, a wealthy British lady found dead at the Tate Gallery in London and a second English woman found dead at Exeter Cathedral have in common? At first glance not much, except that they're all dead.
Inspector Jury discovers connections to New Mexico, and travels there to discover what else connected these women. Without giving any more of the plot away, it's quite an interesting story with a few interesting twists and turns.
Since I listened to the abridged audio cassette, I must mention Tim Curry's delightful performance. He gives distinct vocal characterizations to all the players in the story, and keeps you totally engrossed in the story. The only complaint I have is that a secondary plotline is not abridged very well, and its wrap up leaves a lot to be desired.
20 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Long on words, short on substance
26 Dec 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I've read the majority of Grimes' books, including several non-Jury ones and, actually I was quite disappointed with this one. It's long (over 400 pages) and tends to plod meandering between Jury, Plant, Wiggins, the inimitable Cripse family, but to me never really goes anywhere to adding to the story or, importantly, its resolution - more little vignettes of peoples lives rather than mystery tale. Naturally, there's Jury's ongoing personal dilemma of being constantly without female companionship and far too much time wasted on his self-analysis of quitting smoking, while other characters bog down the story with equal non-relevant issues.
The crimes are resolved over the final ten or so pages, with the previous text not really factoring into the story at all. I would have to say, not one of Ms. Grimes better efforts.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
not her best
13 Oct 2004
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I discovered Martha Grimes and her Richard Jury series about three years ago and have been slowly working my way through. Generally speaking, they are terrific, interesting reads, with a lovable, eccentric cast of recurring characters that makes you look forward to picking up the next one in the series. But this one is a disappointment, the first time in the series I've felt that. Jury heads off to New Mexico, of all places, to solve a trio of tenuously related murders. Usually when you finish a well-written mystery, you can look back and see how all the disparate elements fit together to solve the murder, but in this one, you get done, and you think back to this scene or that scene and you think, "Huh?? What was that doing in there?" And worst of all, I figured out who the murderer was about halfway through without even really trying-- which makes you think that Grimes wasn't really trying. :-)
If you're new to Martha Grimes definitely don't start with this one. In fact, I might even recommend that you skip it. She seems bored with her formula in this one. She should have taken a break and written a novel about New Mexico that had nothing to do with Jury instead of this lame effort. I still have half a dozen or so to read to catch up with the ones that she's publishing now, I sincerely hope this isn't a trend.
If you're new to Martha Grimes definitely don't start with this one. In fact, I might even recommend that you skip it. She seems bored with her formula in this one. She should have taken a break and written a novel about New Mexico that had nothing to do with Jury instead of this lame effort. I still have half a dozen or so to read to catch up with the ones that she's publishing now, I sincerely hope this isn't a trend.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
