- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Headline Book Publishing; New edition edition (5 Aug 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747256969
- ISBN-13: 978-0747256960
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 11.2 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 786,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
When Superintendent Richard Jury follows a girl who catches his eye, he has no idea he will be identifying her in the morgue a few hours later. As it turns out, the body is that of another girl. With the help of an amateur sleuth, Jury sets out to discover the identity of the mystery woman.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Detective Inspector Richard Jury is off duty and riding one of London's double decker buses, eavesdropping on two American women behind him, when a beautiful blonde wearing a sable coat boards the bus, then leaves, then re-boards and gets off at Fulham Palace Road. He is so fascinated with her that he gets off too and follows her to the gates of Fulham Palace. Then he leaves when she goes inside.
The next morning, a woman in a sable coat with no identification is found dead in the palace's herb garden.
Jury volunteers the information about the woman on the bus, but when he looks at the body in the morgue and declares it's not the same person, no one at New Scotland Yard believes him. He sets out on his own to investigate the sable coat, which leads him to an astrologer, artists, art dealers, an art critic, actors, children, travelers, a barmaid, a family of thieves, and aging members of aristocratic friend Melrose Plant's London club in his quest for answers.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Ms. Grimes' prose is outstanding, her colorful characters and plot twists are intriguing and the pub that gives this book its odd title made me want to stop by for a pint or two.
The next morning, a woman in a sable coat with no identification is found dead in the palace's herb garden.
Jury volunteers the information about the woman on the bus, but when he looks at the body in the morgue and declares it's not the same person, no one at New Scotland Yard believes him. He sets out on his own to investigate the sable coat, which leads him to an astrologer, artists, art dealers, an art critic, actors, children, travelers, a barmaid, a family of thieves, and aging members of aristocratic friend Melrose Plant's London club in his quest for answers.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Ms. Grimes' prose is outstanding, her colorful characters and plot twists are intriguing and the pub that gives this book its odd title made me want to stop by for a pint or two.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Yes, it is a bleak November. Isn't London always bleak in November? And, yes, Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard hops on one of the red doubled deckers and rides Bus No. 14 down the Fulham Road toward Fulham Palace. (Bus No. 14 is easy to find--you can pick it up in front of Harrods!) Indeed, in this book, you are in for a ride! Martha Grimes once again evokes the landscape and atmosphere of London in yet another of her intriguing mysteries named after an actual pub in England. Once again she compels her readers (in this the 15th in the series) to stay to the very end with prose that is finely diced and clearly applied--and delightful to read. Grimes has a particular knack in evoking a profusion of literary allusions and of creating characters that hold one's attention, fully. In "Stargazey," Grimes indeed continues to lead us with her array of memorable characters as she tweaks and twitches the very nub of British life--or at least the life of the well-to-do. And she manages this coup, customary that it is with Grimes, with a sense of humor that borders on the unexpected. This American author spends time, obviously, in the UK for her research and she knows the country (and countryside) well; she espouses the vernacular like a native! Remember--she always names her Jury novels after an actual pub! One important issue, however, is that if you are a new reader of Grimes, keeping the characters straight and not being able to understand references to earlier escapades/cases must be confusing. It is essential that readers begin with earlier Grimes books for the full impact of this one; however, it is still worth the read! (Lastly, don't look for the Stargazey pub anymore. About three months before the book was published, new owners/managers took over and changed the name. The pub's still there, but it's not the Stargazey. And the decor has been changed as well. Tis a pity. But the bus ride is well worth the effort, and, if nothing else, get back off the bus and try the tea at Harrods. Now THAT'S worth a bus ride!)
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
But for some reason I kept reading it. Perhaps because I was on a succession of bumpy bus rides in Guatemala and I didn't care if it bumped out of my hand and out the window, perhaps because it is a page turner in the sense that it is so shallow you can dip in anywhere and not need to know what has gone on before (it's like Eastenders without the grasp of human motives or humanity). I think the real reason I read it all the way through was that each page confirmed that old saw about the British and the USA being two cultures separated by a common language. The extent to which Ms. Grimes misunderstands England is breathtaking, her picture of London is based on a London that is no more and probably never was. The words she puts in the mouths of her characters sound like the worst of daytime TV whodunnit mixed with what I can only assume is her involvement with a particularly malelovlent pub crowd who have misinformed her about the meaning and idiom of elements of conversation (I do not think they were saying 'swank', dear, try leaving a letter off). I was going to be charitable to her until she introduced the concept of the British paying to borrow books (and a child called Bub!), when you have a free public library system also with library vans visiting practically every rural village why would you have not one, but two, pay per book establishments in a Northamptonshire village. Maybe she is going for the Science Fantasy market? By the way, Stargazey Pie is a particularly well known Cornish recipe for a dish of pilchards covered with pastry crust through which the heads and tails of the fish poke. The eyes are still in the fish heads, they could gaze at the stars if still alive.
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