• The Dirty Duck

  • A Richard Jury Mystery, Book 4
  • By: Martha Grimes
  • Narrated by: Steve West
  • Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (511 ratings)

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The Dirty Duck  By  cover art

The Dirty Duck

By: Martha Grimes
Narrated by: Steve West
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Publisher's summary

The Dirty Duck is a pub in Shakespeare's beloved Stratford, and in this pub Miss Gwendolyn Bracegirdle of Sarasota, Florida, fresh from a performance of As You Like It, takes her last drink. A few minutes later she is slashed ear to ear, the only clue: two lines from an unknown poem printed across a theater program. The razor-happy murderer, it seems 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, instead takes a crash course in the bloodier side of Elizabethan verse.

©2013 Martha Grimes (P)2013 Simon & Schuster

What listeners say about The Dirty Duck

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

I am from Texas

There are characters in the story from Virginia. The southern-country accents were so bad I could not listen to them. This would probably read very well. Those accents were like nails on a chalk board.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Martha Grimes--great mysteries

This is early, and still vintage, Martha Grimes. I read this book many years ago and have happily just listened to it again. I love the characters--while the stories are always good, it is her ensemble of folks who all charmingly interact with each other through all the books that really keep the stories lively as well as good mysteries.

Richard Jury is sort of the cerebral Scotland Yard detective who happens to be at the right place to deal with this crime,and who is always the thread that holds the books together. He is delightfully surrounded by his friend Melrose Plant (who has given up his titles to live an ordinary life--to the exasperation of his American Aunt, who would like to use him to further her own pretensions) and several other of their ongoing friends.

In this story, murder and kidnapping occur to Americans who are traveling together on a special tour to England. They apparently are all quite wealthy, but there is a curious lack of urgency on their part to find the kidnapped child. Together Jury and Plant (chiefly) unravel all the pieces of the plot to bring it to a very satisfactory closing. Recommend!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Miss the old narrators

I love that you are doing Martha Grimes early books - love them all. But I do miss the narrating skills of Donada Peters and John Lee.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

NOT ONE OF MY FAVORITES

After listening to 3 books in the series back-to-back, I was just beginning to become a fan. However, this story didn't grab me, didn't make sense and the narrator's interpretation of an American accent is dated, unimaginative, and irritating. That whiny mid-west twang is better suited in stories from the late 19th century and early 20th century when people rarely traveled more than 50 miles from home. But now we all know how a mid-Atlantc accent sounds and that all Americans do not sound alike. I feel that the narrator and producer of this installment just got lazy. The book is about an American tour group - how hard would it have been to do a little research!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Love the novels, but the narrator!!!!

He is hit and miss, if West would just stop trying to sound like a woman, uhg!

This isn't the best story in the series, but i still enjoyed the book. Having read the entire series the characters are my old friends. Jury is the original "Superintendent", melancholic, nostalgic, romantic...

The publisher's summary is accurate if a little vague.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

So confusing!

I love Martha Grimes books, and like so many people I am in it for the characters. The mystery in Grimes’ Jury novels is always a vehicle to let me visit with Jury, Higgins, Melrose etc. But, I have tried to listen to this, skipped forward and back again to avoid feeling annoyed. I am so bewildered by the author’s use of American idioms and language from the 1940’s set in more modern times. As another reviewer pointed out this may be fine for the Brit readers but is such an unnecessary error. “Can you feature that?” For one of Grimes shortest audiobooks in the series, I really hoped and expected to want to know more than “the end.”
The narrator is very professional and I often enjoy him but the children’s accents and voices in general are grating.
Speaking of children, I usually really enjoy it when kids are characters in the Jury series so I was startled by how unmoved I was by this one.
Also, I have to say that a young woman reflecting on enjoying her daddy’s sexual attention was very odd and unexpected for Grimes. Some of the women in this mystery are very poorly treated—by the author.
As much as I was committed to buying all of this series on Audible I will possibly return this one, and trust other reviews. I’ll be giving “The Horse You Came In On” a miss based on reviews that highlight some similar issues.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The Narrator is fantastic.

The author and narrator on this book series (this is #4) are fantastic.
i have fallen in love with the series. I love them!!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Awful Narrator

I don’t usually leave written reviews, but I had to for this one to spare others from listening to a terrible reading of the series. I have long enjoyed the Richard Jury series and thought to start again from the first one but this time with audiobooks; however, I find the narrator simply too annoying. His characters sound campy and unnatural. The author’s prose, which I find a delight to read, is ruined by a narrator who overacts and makes all characters sound just awful. The narrator seems to stereotype how certain types of people should sound. The worst reading I’ve ever had the misfortune to listen to. Skip this one and get the text versions instead.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

American Accents Mar Good Listening

For some reason, the voice rendering of one of the main characters irritated me. Petty of me, I know, but it did spoil the overall experience with a book set in Stratford with Shakespeare in the background.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Creative

murder-investigation, law-enforcement, friendship

What a creative tale! The characters certainly are, the venue is odd, the murders are artfully done, the investigation is much like rabbits out of hats, and the humor is sly. But I liked it.
Steve West is rather droll as narrator.

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1 person found this helpful