The Old Fox Deceiv’d (Richard Jury Series #2) by Martha Grimes

As mentioned in the previous book that I read and reviewed in the blog (Dust (Richard Jury, #21) by Martha Grimes ) I find this series unsettling because all the characters seem to have a history which I did not know enough about. Without the whole picture, I tend to get restless. I then ventured out on a new journey to make sure I follow the right order henceforth. My first hurdle turned out to be the fact that this series is in actuality really old! ( this I was not aware of because the writing style and the racy lives of the characters seemed incongruous with older times ) . This basically meant that getting access to some of the books here in Hong Kong seems difficult. I only managed to get the second book.

I begin the series from the second book, because although I like the series, I am not going to hunt for a copy of the first one( to borrow) any harder than I have. The only person who has already made an entrance and a bond with Jury is the eccentric Melrose Plant who has given up his title ( but not money obviously) and is assisting in this investigation.

Jury has been called to a location a few hours away from London to help kick-start a stalled investigation into the murder of a stranger in town. The strange was laying claims to an identity which may or may not be hers. There seem to one too many lives lost in the town and though that idea has Richard Jury descending into a melancholic thought train, he manages to piece together the solution. More controlled chaos ensues after his arrival into town. The best part of the book was that I finally know how Bertie comes into the picture with his dog Arnold.

The writing is different (A line in wiki suggests that not all were happy about an American writing a British based novel and that some of the expressions uttered may be more American than not) but still fun. I did laugh out a couple of times. It is definitely worth a try by the more adventurous ( in reading that is)

New words ( I really need to come up with a tagline for this, am open to suggestions for it)

1. Chatelaines:
   a woman in charge of a large house.
   a set of short chains attached to a woman’s belt, used for carrying keys or other items.
2. Boulevardier: a wealthy, fashionable socialite.
3. Bailwick :one’s sphere of operations or area of interest