The Horse You Came in on [Mass Market Paperback]

Martha Grimes usually writes complex, thoughtful mysteries notable for their memorable characters and atmosphere; consequently, THE HORSE YOU CAME IN ON--which finds Jury and his friend Melrose Plant visiting Baltimore, Maryland to investigate a double homocide--will be a great disappointment her many fans.

The story is at once very slight and very, very convoluted, involving both an "art" novelist who is struggling to finish her latest work and a student who may or may not have forged a manuscript attributed to Edgar Allen Poe. After a certain point, Grimes also relies upon genealogy for a plot twist--and while I grant that she certainly knows a great deal about writing novels and is at least credible on the subject of Poe, her commentary on genealogy will not pass muster with even the mildest amateur genealogist. In the process we are also treated to chunks of the book the novelist is writing and chunks of the Poe story that may or may not be an elaborate hoax, and by the time the novel winds to its rather tedious conclusion we feel we have read everything except a novel by Martha Grimes. Which is a great pity indeed.

I was surprised to find that Grimes was willing to take her ensemble cast on the road and try her hand at mystery in America. Although Grimes is not always good at clearing up the loose ends that she begins, she is true to her characters. Her descriptions are vivid and accurate and her gang of do-gooders are delightfully consistent. Frankly I would be disappointed if some young lady didn't win the heart of confirmed bachelor Melrose Plant in each novel. Grimes entertains if only because her characters have a self-depracating sense of humour and a rollicking good time. I was thrilled on a trip to Baltimore, MD when I stumbled across the tavern "The Horse You Came In On." It was a piece of my world crossing Richard Jury's path.

Martha Grimes' mysteries, all of them, stand in an ordered rank on my bedroom shelves. She's a writer whose stories are worth reading and then re-reading. The puzzle is nearly always interesting and satisfactorily worked out. But that's not the real delight of the novels, only the entertaining excuse for two other more compelling reasons to read her. First, there's her Pickwickian cast of characters. They're a collection of perpetually and ruefully unattached men and women of indeterminate early middle age, who meet in a variety of colorfully named pubs and solve murders with more or less tragicomic flair, while they repeatedly fail to resolve the mysteries of their own inner lives. Second, there's the speculative and philosophical line of thought that often crops up as a secondary theme. Grimes gives this metaphysical aspect full play as a depth and dimension of counterpoint to her vivid characters and solid plot lines. The Horse You Came In On plots an intriguing mystery, but it is about writing, and specifically about plot invention in writing. Let me count the ways--a purported diary from Italy; a minimalist novel; the plagiarized version of the minimalist novel; a holograph manuscript that may or may not have been penned by Edgar Allen Poe; a Russian romance tale made up on the spot to amuse a child; a fabricated family history; a book of poetry; a work in progress (whose writer, to maintain focus, chains herself to her Johns Hopkins University desk--and thereby hangs the crisis of the plot); a hobbyist's attempt at a Dashiell Hammett-style mystery. All these literary productions are embedded in Grimes' own marvelous inventions, carrying us from the Tate Gallery in London to Baltimore, to Philadelphia, to the village of Long Piddleton in Northhamptonshire--just to name the more important locations. It's not often that one encounters a writer who can present thoroughly serious thinking in the form of comedy and at the same time stay competently in the mystery genre. Her novels are pleasing at every level. Her first mystery in this series is called The Man with a Load of Mischief. Start there and enjoy the wandering, speculative, humane, whimsical series of stories. You won't be disappointed.