Martha Grimes Richard Jury Mysteries Series Books In Order

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Richard Jury Mysteries Books In Order

The Richard Jury series centres around the adventures of Detective Chief Inspector Richard Jury, a Scotland Yard detective, and his friend Melrose Plant, an aristocratic amateur sleuth.

Blending elements of traditional British detective fiction with modern sensibilities, the Jury mystery stories feature murders, thefts, and plots that take many delightful twists and turns.

Fans of the books highlight the wit, humour, and occasional literary references that Martha Grimes brings to the stories, including the fact that each of the novels is named after a real-world pub. They also love the playful banter and friendship between Jury and Plant.

Fans strongly recommend reading the books in order to fully enjoy the ways Martha develops the characters and their relationships throughout the series.

1. The Man with a Load of Mischief

Long Piddleton had always been wary of newcomers. But the quiet town was stunned when the first stranger was found dead

2. The Old Fox Deceiv’d

Scotland Yard Inspector Richard Jury investigates the bizarre murder of an unidentified woman in a tiny English seaside village

3. The Anodyne Necklace

Scotland Yard’s Richard Jury solves a bizarre murder in an even stranger town and follows a treasure map to yet another chilling crime.

4. The Dirty Duck

This fourth Richard Jury novel finds the Superintendent in Stratford, investigating a murder in a popular pub where the killer has left behind a cryptic fragment of Elizabethan verse.

5. Jerusalem Inn

Bad tidings come to Scotland Yard’s Richard Jury and his sidekick, Melrose Plant, when clues from two corpses lead them to a remote country inn where holiday cheer turns to fear.

6. The Deer Leap

When a series of accidents befalls both animals and humans in the village of Ashdown Dean Superintendent Richard Jury, his aristocratic assistant, Melrose Plant, the local police and a fifteen-year-old animal lover join the search for the murderer

7. Help the Poor Struggler

Superintendent Jury, his assistant, and a policeman in Devon attempt to solve the terrifying murder of three children.

8. I Am the Only Running Footman

The Scotland Yard detective investigates an elusive pair of murders in this “intriguing, appealing” entry

9. The Five Bells and Bladebone

A body in a bureau sends the Scotland Yard detective on a vexing investigation in this “absorbing and stylishly crafty” mystery

10. The Old Silent

Superintendent Richard Jury investigates the death of Roger Healy at the Old Silent Inn, an investigation hampered by the silence of the dead man’s wife.

11. The Old Contemptibles

Following a passionate and troubled love affair with a pretty widow named Jane Holdsworth, Jury finds himself, unaccountably, a suspect in a murder investigation

12. The Horse You Came in On

The murder is in America, but the call goes out to Scotland Yard superintendent Richard Jury. Accompanied by his aristocratic friend Melrose Plant and by Sargeant Wiggins

13. Rainbow’s End: A Richard Jury Mystery

Scotland Yard superintendent Richard Jury flies to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where an address links three women murdered in England. One died in Salisbury’s Roman ruins, a second in Exeter Cathedral and a third at the Tate Gallery in London.

14. The Case Has Altered: A Richard Jury Mystery

The Lincolnshire fenlands are the right setting for Richard Jury’s latest case, a mystifying double murder.

15. The Stargazey

Saturday night. It was not a night to be spending alone, riding a bus.

16. The Lamorna Wink

After taking up residence in an old Cornish manor, Melrose Plant is quickly drawn into a mystery involving the disappearance of his beloved aunt

17. The Blue Last

Richard Jury finally faces the last thing in the world he wants to deal with—the war that killed his mother, his father, his childhood.

18. The Grave Maurice

“Chew on this,” says Melrose Plant to Richard Jury, who’s in the hospital being driven crazy by Hannibal, a nurse who likes to speculate on his chances for survival. Jury could use a good story, preferably one not ending with his own demise.

19. The Winds of Change

Richard Jury embarks on the darkest investigation of his career when the dead body of a young London girl leads to the cold case of a missing girl

20. The Old Wine Shades

“The dog came back.” “This is a joke, right?” “No, it isn’t … So do you want to hear the rest of it?” Dumbly, Jury nodded.

21. Dust: A Richard Jury Mystery

A young friend pulls Scotland Yard’s Richard Jury into the life—and death—of a wealthy bachelor.

22. The Black Cat: A Richard Jury Mystery

Jury is deeply suspicious when requested on a case far out of his jurisdiction in an outlying village, where a young woman has been murdered behind the local pub.

23. Vertigo 42: A Richard Jury Mystery

Richard Jury is meeting Tom Williamson at Vertigo 42, a bar on the forty-second floor of an office building in London’s financial district. Despite inconclusive evidence, Tom is convinced his wife, Tess, was murdered seventeen years ago.

24. The Knowledge: A Richard Jury Mystery

The Scotland Yard detective nearly meets his match in a Baker Street Irregulars-like gang of kids and a homicide case that reaches into east Africa.

25. The Old Success: A Richard Jury Mystery

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

26. The Red Queen

One calm night in Twickenham, a businessman named Tom Treadnor is shot off his barstool at The Queen pub. Superintendent Richard Jury is called in to investigate