Martha Grimes

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Martha Grimes (born May 2, 1931 in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , United States ) is an American writer . She is known for her successful novels about Inspector Jury and is considered a master of the classic crime novel . Her novels are considered works of the best crime tradition and are often compared to those of Agatha Christie .

Life

Grimes was born the daughter of a lawyer and studied English at the University of Maryland, College Park . She first wrote poetry until her first novel was published in 1981 with an edition of 3000 copies. The series of inspectors juries has continued consistently since then; meanwhile (2019) 24 volumes have been published.

Today Martha Grimes lives in Santa Fe ( New Mexico ) and in Washington, DC She is professor of literature and creative writing , and taught for a long time at the Johns Hopkins University and at Montgomery College in Takoma Park , Maryland . She is an active animal rights activist and donated most of the proceeds from her book "The Girl Without a Name" to animal welfare associations .

Works

Inspector Jury Series

In her traditional English crime novels about Inspector Richard Jury, Martha Grimes describes the melancholy protagonist's cases, lost in complicated entanglements . The inspector or superintendent of Scotland Yard is supported by his humorous friend Melrose Plant, who can afford to give up his titles because of his inherited wealth , as well as by the ailing assistant Sergeant Alfred Wiggins.

Two microcosms have formed around the Inspector Jury:

  • On the one hand, there are jury's superiors in the professional environment, the choleric Chief Superintendent Racer, who calls the jury to work even when there are actually three other inspectors on the duty list. Then there are Racer's secretary, Fiona Clingmore, who is always dressed in black (with a weakness for all kinds of beauty products, which she likes to try out in the office) and Cyril, the criminally inclined tomcat who likes to get hold of the boss's stock of alcohol. Sergeant Wiggins, with his countless home remedies for imaginary and real ailments, completes the service staff.
  • Privately, Jury lives as a single, in a house community with the attractive, much younger Carole Anne Palutski, who works as a fortune teller , and the older lady Mrs. Wassermann, who, as a survivor of the Holocaust, does not leave her apartment and Jury repeatedly describes suspicious men who pass in front of her window.

On the other hand, such a microcosm also exists around Jury's friend Melrose Plant.

  • Melrose Plant, the Earl of Caverness, has been involved since the first novel "Inspector Jury Sleeps Out" and has supported him with his cases ever since. Melrose lives in Long Piddleton, a small English village that also houses his stealthy American aunt Agatha, the antiques dealer Marshall Trueblood, the stylishly drunk intriguer Diane Demorney, the aristocrat Vivian Rivington, the realtor Mr. Jenks, the bookseller Theo Wrenn Stop Browne and the innkeepers Dick Scroggs and Trevor Sly.

The inspector jury detective novels are full of amusing side stories that revolve around the (amorous) adventures of normal life with dry humor. In contrast, the main storylines, the murder stories, are dark, bloody and cruel. Often it is about child abuse , mentally or physically. There are many very lonely children in the Inspector Jury novels, often girls, who have had to go through or watch terrible things and who are now bravely trying to survive in this cold world despite everything.

These heroic , lost little figures are echoed in the loner Richard Jury himself, who as a child lost his mother in a bombing raid in World War II . Jury's love stories, all of which are characterized by a kind of helper syndrome , end - with the exception of "The Winds of Change" - with separation, or worse, with murder. Since the middle of the series, there has been Divisional Commander Brian Macalvie of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary , an intelligent colleague à la Mr. Spock, or the crime scene - forensic specialist Professor Boerne, as his counterpart and the dialogue partner driving the plot forward .

The friends in Long Piddleton are also - with all their good qualities and their wit - remained immature at heart, unable to defend themselves against the terrible Aunt Agatha, who bullies everyone . Even unmarried, they sit together in the pub the whole time and childishly thwart Vivian Rivington's wedding by scaring off her fiancé.

Inspector Jury and those around him go through an evolution as the series of novels progresses . While the antics of his fellow Long Piddletoner are always silly, jury meets human and more helpless on the spot until it in extremely dark thriller "The Blue Last", who is also once again the trauma of war is taking up, betrayed and is almost killed. It was only after this catastrophe that he succeeded in breaking free from his mental numbness, as the English crime thriller "The Winds of Change" suggests.

Published novels

  1. (1981) Inspector Jury Sleeps Outside ( The Man With a Load of Mischief )
  2. (1982) Inspector Jury plays dominoes ( The Old Fox Deceiv'd )
  3. (1983) Inspector Jury searches for the Kennington Emerald ( The Anodyne Necklace )
  4. (1984) Inspector Jury kisses the muse ( The Dirty Duck )
  5. (1984) Inspector Jury Breaks the Ice ( Jerusalem Inn )
  6. (1985) Inspector Jury lifts the fog ( Help the Poor Struggler )
  7. (1985) Inspector Jury plays cat and mouse ( The Deer Leap )
  8. (1986) Inspector Jury is in the rain ( I Am the Only Running Footman )
  9. (1987) Inspector Jury visits old ladies ( The Five Bells and Bladebone )
  10. (1989) Inspector Jury goes over the moor ( The Old Silent )
  11. (1991) Inspector Jury is under suspicion ( The Old Contemptibles )
  12. (1993) Stranger Feathers ( The Horse You Came In On )
  13. (1995) Blind Zeal ( Rainbow's End )
  14. (1997) Consenting Adults ( The Case Has Altered )
  15. (1998) The Woman in the Fur Coat ( The Stargazey )
  16. (1999) The Stairway to the Sea ( The Lamorna Wink )
  17. (2001) The funeral wearing black ( The Blue Last )
  18. (2002) Risen from the Dead ( The Grave Maurice )
  19. (2004) Carnival of the Dead ( The Winds of Change )
  20. (2006) Inspector Jury gets down to business ( The Old Wine Shades )
  21. (2007) Inspector Jury makes the puppets dance ( Dust )
  22. (2010) All the Beautiful Dead ( The Black Cat )
  23. (2014) Inspector Jury and the Woman in Red ( Vertigo 42 )
  24. (2018) Inspector Jury and the Path of the Murderer ( The Knowledge )
  25. (2020) Inspector Jury and the Dead on the Beach ( The Old Success )

Radio plays

All “Inspector Jury” novels are originally named after real pubs. The MDR produced between 1995 and 2003. Twelve of the novels as radio plays .

Film adaptations

The novels "Inspector Jury is sleeping outside the home", "Inspector Jury clears the fog" and "Inspector Jury plays cat and mouse" were published in 2013, 2015 and 2017 on behalf of ZDF and ORF under the titles "Der Tote im Pub", "Mord in the fog ”and“ Inspector Jury plays cat and mouse ” filmed . The novel "Inspector Jury Plays Dominoes" was broadcast on February 21, 2018 as "Inspector Jury - The Death of the Harlequin". The writer wrote Günter Knarr .

Emma Graham series

  • (1992) Was am See happened ( The End of the Pier ), German: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag , Reinbek near Hamburg, 2001 ISBN 3-499-26317-3
  • (1996) The Hotel am See ( Hotel Paradise )
  • (2001) Still the Lake ( Cold Flat Junction )
  • (2005) The Ruin at the Lake ( Belle Ruin )
  • (2011) The Lost Girls ( Fade Away Girl )

Andi Oliver series

  • (1999) The girl with no name ( Biting the Moon )
  • (2008) Night of the Pursuit ( Dakota )

Other

  • (1989) With Umbrella and Flashing Gun ( Send Bygraves )
  • (1996) Free Entry ( The Price of Admission )
  • (1997) If the mousetrap includes / The train departs ( The Train Now Departing )
  • (2003) Murder Success ( Foul Matter )
  • (2013) ( Double Double: A Dual Memoir of Alcoholism ), with Ken Grimes
  • (2016) A Murder Doesn't Make Summer ( The Way of All Fish ), continuation of "Murder Success"

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ HörDat
  2. ^ Internet Movie Database
personal data
SURNAME Grimes, Martha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania