The Red Queen (Richard Jury Mysteries, #26) (2025)

While THE RED QUEEN presents itself as a mystery novel, it ultimately fails to deliver the compelling detective fiction elements a reader of Grimes' expects. The narrative offers little insight into Jury’s investigative process, and I don't understand his fascination with the "widow." His decision to send Melrose undercover as a Stable Master is pointless and adds nothing to the plot. Similarly, the discovery of a doppelgänger —a potentially intriguing development—is never thoroughly explored, as the supposed twin remains an abstract figure, absent from the actual investigation.

Compounding these narrative weaknesses is the introduction of an implausible subplot concerning Higgins’ long-lost sister. His brief and perfunctory search with Macalvie lacks emotional depth and investigative rigor, rendering the subplot both unconvincing and extraneous. Additionally, the inclusion of a scene involving the Long Piddleton characters naming a goat and Jury's rescuing of piglets serves no apparent purpose within the context of the mystery, further contributing to the novelistic disarray. The resolution, when it finally arrives, fails to provide a coherent or rewarding conclusion.

Ultimately THE RED QUEEN struggles to recapture the narrative depth and intellectual engagement characteristic of earlier installments in the RICHARD JURY series. Its reliance on underdeveloped plot threads, tangential diversions, and a lackluster resolution results in a novel that falls short of the expectations set by its predecessors.

Martha Grimes has named all her twenty-six Richard Jury mysteries after classic English pubs. After 44 years of writing about Superintendent Richard Jury and the lovable Melrose Plant, an aristocrat who has given up his titles and is forever squabbling with his various elderly aunts, Grimes perhaps takes us for the last time to rural England for some delightful reading.
Grimes will be ninety-four in 2025 so her writing days may not last for many more outings with Jury and Sergeant Wiggins. It all began in 1981 with The Man with a Load of Mischief. I used to wait annually for the latest book by Grimes for my fix of cozy, fun reading. And while the latest Grimes Jury novel, The Red Queen, is probably not her best of the twenty-six, it is a continuation of characters we love.
This time the plot concerns a man shot while sitting on a barstool in The Queen Pub. Shot right off the stool from outside a window in full view of the other patrons. The quaint town of Twickenham is the setting, and of course, everyone in town becomes a suspect when no one has a very good opinion of the dead man.
Meanwhile, of course, several quirky side characters and their stories also amuse the reader. Wiggins’ sister, missing for years and presumed dead, has just sent a postcard to their mother. And Plant goes undercover at the dead man’s estate to help Jury find the killer.
Grimes is one of a few authors (she is American!) left carrying on the cozy British detective mystery tradition. Each of her Jury books can be read as a standalone story, though the characters do evolve over the years from one book to another. My advice is to go back to the beginning and read them all – starting when Grimes was at her best with the clever, darkly humorous novels.
My rating 3 of 5

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

While I've always enjoyed the cozy aspects of the Richard Jury mystery, with all its quirky characters and witty dialogue, The Red Queen follows the same formula without much forward momentum, leading to the tale being fairly predictable. The separate side story of Wiggins' search for his long lost sister was unrelated to the main plot (and seems to have been included to have Macalvie make an appearance).

Considering the longevity of the series, and the time period in which the characters were originally introduced, there's hardly any references to when the story are taking place (the characters would probably not still be out and about in 2025).

I received an Advanced Read Copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I started reading this series back in the 1990s. I enjoy the quirky characters and always look forward to checking in with them. It had been 5 years since the last book and I wasn't sure there would be another, so I was thrilled to find this on NetGalley.
In this book, the gang is back, at least for a page or two. My favorite part of this series has always been how Jury convinces Plant to work under cover. Not much to that plot line in this story, but always fun to see. Added bonus, Wiggins gets a few pages for himself. This subplot doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it gives Grimes a chance to bring back Macalvie which is okay by me.
Recommended for fans of the series.
3.5

I was looking forward to reading a new Richard Jury book, and the character was everything I remembered and as enjoyable to read about as ever. However, the mystery itself felt convoluted and a little all over the place, and the ending was unsatisfactory and too ambiguous. It felt like the plan for the mystery kept changing and then the author would try different tricks to make something else work. At one point, I convinced myself to keep reading because I was committed to writing a review, but then I was eventually glad that I stuck with it, so I'm giving the book 3 stars as an accurate average of how my rating went up and down while reading it.

*Thanks to NetGalley the the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Great Scott! Martha is 96!! Her last published book was The Old Success (2019).
For those of us who have enjoyed the series for years this is a nostalgic trip among many of the staple characters and humor, but the writing itself is a bit flat. However, it does make me want to go back and reread some of the older books.
I requested and received a free temporary uncorrected digital galley from Grove Atlantic | Atlantic Monthly Press via NetGalley. Avail Jul 01, 2025
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Richard Jury is British police superintendent, who is called in to investigate the shooting murder of Tom Treadnor at The Queen pub. There are twists and turns throughout, including who is guilty of painting the pub sign The Red Queen after the murder, and discovering who has been murdered.. I found Grimes' writing difficult to truly enjoy- I felt at a distance from the characters and events.

I started reading the Richard Jury mysteries back in the early 1990’s, when I would go to Borders every Friday to browse their New Releases shelf and be rewarded with another journey to Long Piddleton and its cast of eccentric characters. The mysteries themselves, all named after real British pubs, were complex, well-written, and character driven. We were invested in the lives of the regulars, from neighbor Carole-Ann to Melrose Plant (and his scheming aunt) to perpetual hypochondriac Wiggins. These were old friends.

So I was looking forward to the latest Richard Jury mystery, “The Red Queen”. The last book was published over five years ago, “The Old Success”, and it was a bit of a disappointment. Was that a one-time slip? Unfortunately, no, the latest adventure continues (and hastens) the decline of this series, it is a disjointed mystery with little suspense, unnecessary scenes, and very little of our old characters.

The premise is interesting. Tom Treadnor, a wealthy businessman, is sitting at his usual barstool at “The Queen” pub, when someone shoots him through the window(!) without being noticed. Jury and Wiggins are called in (weak reasons, but still) and start their investigation. It soon becomes clear that no one had a really good impression of Treadnor, from his wife to his business partners to the servants. In fact, he was about to be divorced, so no lost tears.

Jury goes about the investigation, but there’s not much detail in the story about what he actually does, few interviews, no real forensics or anything really. He has Melrose go undercover as a Stable Master, but only for a scene or two and it doesn’t really contribute to the story, other than for a few laughs. Jury also sees a doppelganger of the dead man in a newspaper article, but no one seems to be able to track down this twin traveling in North America. Most of the action seems to take place off camera, so to speak, and we just hear about it later. So who really was killed at The Queen, and why?

Throw in a ridiculous plot about Higgins having a missing sister (this is the first time anyone is hearing about this!) that he spends a couple of days searching for with Macalvie. Also one quick scene with the Long Piddleton crew naming a goat and rescuing piglets, also nothing to do with the mystery. And finally a very rushed, unclear, and disappointing ending, and you have this short book that makes one long for the old series.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Grove Atlantic, Atlantic Monthly Press via NetGalley. Thank you!