It felt like a complicated mystery considering how short the story is, but it was still enjoyable and satisfying as far as providing a good mystery with the right amount of clues. The main mystery was about a man shot at a pub, and Jury was his usual clever self as he figured things out in conversations. While I did like that, there was another side mystery with a missing sister that I was more interested in. This might not work as well if someone hasn't read anything in this series before but this was comfortable and fun to get back with the characters.

Yet another fantastic book in the Richard Jury series. Martha Grimes has a certain way of writing that draws the reader into the mystery as if you were sitting right there and living through the story. As this is the latest book in the series it isn’t necessary to read in order.

First I would to thank NetGalley for an advanced copy of The Red Queen. It saddens me to say that I was disappointed in this book. I have read all of the previous Richard Jury series by Martha Grimes and looked forward to her newest. This one fell flat. It struck me as disjointed and trying to tell two stories in one book. We begin with the first, a murder at a pub. It is an unusual crime to be sure and “the Yard” is called in due to the victim’s social status. So far, so good. Midway through the investigation Wiggins announces he needs time off for a personal matter and off he goes on a quest involving a missing family member. The resulting investigation borders on ridiculous as does Wiggins’ reason for keeping the situation under wraps.
The snappy dialogue that I usually enjoy seems forced in this book, bordering on absurd.
I will try again with Ms. Grimes’ next book and hope that this was just a blip in the road.

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 takes us, perhaps 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

This ARC title was provided by Netgalley.com at no cost, and I am providing an unbiased review. The Red Queen will be published on July 1, 2025.

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.

In the twenty sixth book in the Richard Jury series, a businessman named Tom Treadnor is shot off his barstool at The Queen pub. Superintendent Richard Jury is called in to investigate, and quickly realizes that everyone in Treadnor’s life – from his widow, Alice, to the staff at his manor, to his business partner had differing opinions of him. And to complicate things further, Jury has just happened upon a photo in a newspaper of a man in the United States, who is a dead ringer for Treadnor.
Meanwhile, Wiggins, Jury’s partner at New Scotland Yard, becomes sidetracked by an investigation of his sister, missing for years and presumed dead, has just sent a postcard to their mother.
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 very excited to read this as the Jury series has always been a favorite. Unfortunately I have to agree with what others have said. Too many disjointed stories contributing nothing to the central mystery just to have all of the beloved characters making an entrance.

As usual, the Melrose/Jury dynamic is great and all of the Ardry End characters felt right. I can never downvote this series too much because of the dialogue and characters that are so familiar to me but there just wasn’t enough here to keep the story moving. And the ending, what happened between Alice and Jury? It just….ended.

Thank you to Netgalley, Ms Grimes and the publisher for an ARC to review and read.

Maybe my expectations are too high after years of reading Grimes’ Richard Jury series but this seemed too concise, too whittled down to the to the bare bones of the narrative. It was enjoyable, just not as much as I hoped for and I will never miss a chance to read a Martha Grimes, novel .

While THE RED QUEEN presents itself as a mystery novel, it ultimately fails to deliver the compelling detective fiction elements a read 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.

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!

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).

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.

The Red Queen by Martha Grimes only arrived in my NetGalley review folder Friday morning and I allowed it to leap-frog over EVERYTHING else and read it that night in a sitting. Martha Grimes's Richard Jury / Melrose Plant series used to be my ultimate comfort read. Most of which I read pre-2014 before I started reviewing books on this site.

I used to say that if I could live in ONE book world it would be Melrose Plant's Long Piddleton with the aristocrats who spend the day at the pub when when they're not helping Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury solve cases. I've always found it kinda fascinating that, though the series is quintessentially English (with each book named after a pub and many references English life), Grimes is American.

It's unsurprising that this series has dissipated over the last two decades as Grimes is 93 years old. It kicked off in 1981 and she wrote the early books at such a pace that she had to slow down her characters' ageing process... little did she know that septuagenarian / retirement village detectives would be the rage in the 2020s. 

I was disappointed with the last book in this series and unfortunately - despite my enthusiastic greeting - it was a bit the same here. Enjoyable but not the experience I remember. 

Here Jury is called in to a case where a wealthy businessman has been shot in a crowded pub. There are no shortages of suspects as he seems to have had very few fans. His wife is nonplussed and we learn a divorce was imminent. Added to that his business partners disagreed with some of the recent business moves he'd been making.

As is so often the case Jury has Melrose Plant (who ditched his 'Lord Ardry' title years before) go undercover as something called a Stable Master and Melrose has to have his own stable boy accompany him given he knows nothing about looking after horses. Like 2019's  The Old Success, we don't actually see / hear much from the usual Long Piddleton crew here or Jury's neighbour Carole-Ann though we do spend a bit of time at Melrose's private London club (Borings) and I'm always entertained by the witty banter Grimes offers up through her two lead characters.

It was slightly strange that Jury's offsider Wiggins went off on his own adventure here, in search of a lost sister, roping in series regular Brian Macalvie. This book is only just over 250 pages so it felt that that side plot was unnecessary - and a little strange that Wiggins had never mentioned a missing sister in forty years of novels (ie. 25 previous books in the series).

Grimes adds complexity to the plot through the disappearance of a man who's the dead businessman's doppelgänger... but there was just something missing that this series used to offer and I'm not sure what that was/is. I suspect (at the time) I sometimes grew frustrated by the extraneous characters in this series but the very brief return to Long Piddleton and exposure to the off-beat shenanigans (involving a goat and piglets) of Melrose's eclectic aristocratic friends reminded me of earlier books in the series. So perhaps those regular characters - and their droll banter - grounded Jury and Melrose. That said I will continue to go back for more Melrose and Jury while I still can.

3.5 stars

The Red Queen is a Richard Jury Mystery. It was a very good story. I am afraid I thought I had written my review and threw away all of my notes. I will try to give a short review. It takes place in the town of Twickenham. Superintendent Richard Jury is called in to find out who killed Tom Treadnor in the Red Queen Pub. Treadnor was sitting at the bar when he was shot dropping to the floor. No one in the bar realized what had happened. Richard and his partner, Wiggins go to Treadnor House to speak to his wife, Alice Treadnor.

There is a side story involving Wiggins and his family. He takes sometime off to go home to his mother as she is distraught getting a postcard from her daughter who has had any contact with her family for many years. He contacts his old commander for help. He and his old commnander, Brian Macalvie follow the trail of different towns until they find his sister, Betty Jean.

There is so much that goes on in this story that it can't all be put down on paper. I will let the reader read to the unusual ending. It does keep you on your toes as it zigs and zags through the mystery.

Thank You NetGalley and Atlantic Monthy Press for this ARC.

I was a fan of Martha Grimes and thought I would restart reading the series but it wasn't for me. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I’ve been a massive Grimes fan for as long as I can remember, and Richard Jury is a favorite, but I must admit sadly, that this one was totally lacking in the usual clever dialog and clever plotting. The end was rushed, the characters were cartoons, and the book just didn’t work for me.

It had been quite a while since I’d read any of the titles in this series. I didn’t enjoy it. The characters were too impressed with themselves, there were too many characters that seemed superfluous , and it was bit too old school.