The Dirty Duck

Martha Grimes

Mar 2013 · Richard Jury Mysteries Book 4 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

A killer targets Shakespeare-loving tourists in the New York Times–bestselling mystery series full of “vivacity, charm, and wit” (Kirkus Reviews).

The Dirty Duck is a pub in Shakespeare’s beloved Stratford-on-Avon, and it’s here that Miss Gwendolyn Bracegirdle of Sarasota, Florida—fresh from a performance of As You Like It—takes her last drink. Mere minutes later she is slashed ear to ear. The only clue to this baffling and brutal murder is a pair of lines from an unknown poem printed across a theater program.

It seems that a razor-happy killer is stalking a group of rich American tourists. And Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury, just passing through Stratford for a glimpse of the intriguing Lady Kennington, finds himself taking a crash course in the bloodier side of Elizabethan verse.

Ratings and reviews

Probably the most dated of the Jury novels. It seemed weird people marveling at someone lugging around a portable computer, and not a small one at that. The main story was excellent. It's just the intervening 30 years of technological advancement made the whole computer thing seem quaint. The culprit seemed more obvious in this story than some of the other novels. Once again Jury and Melrose were excellent. During most of the book they were fairly upbeat. But by the end Jury seemed more like the morose and melancholy figure I remembered reading 20 years ago, pining away over Jenny Kennington and to a lesser extent Vivian Rivington. I quite enjoyed the book, even if I learned more about Shakespeare and Marlowe than I really cared to.

About the author

Bestselling author Martha Grimes is the author of more than thirty books, including twenty-two Richard Jury mysteries. She is also the author of Double Double, a dual memoir of alcoholism written with her son. The winner of the 2012 Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award, Grimes lives in Bethesda, Maryland.