The Red Queen

A Richard Jury Mystery

De: Martha Grimes

Narrado por: Steve West

A sudden murder in an English village pub sets off the twenty-sixth novel in the bestselling series starring superintendent Richard Jury, from bestselling author Martha Grimes, still “one of the most fascinating mystery writers today” (Houston Chronicle).

One calm night in Twickenham, 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 own: His sister, missing for years and presumed dead, has just sent a postcard to their mother. When Wiggins takes off in search of his sister, the two investigations begin to converge.

Funny, eccentric, and fueled by Richard Jury’s talent for seeing clues in the most unlikely places, The Red Queen is a welcome return to a classic character and an exciting addition to a series that has been called “delightful, surprising, even magical” (The Washington Post).

©2025 Martha Grimes (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio

Choppy and disconnected transitions.

I love the characters but the story was as if 3 different books were put together to make one.

The Wiggins storyline in particular was discordant.

Martha Grimes?

I had to listen to this book twice because I have read every M Grimes book and could not believe the mistakes could be real. Football with a "down" and "dangerous" in England? Football in England is soccer. Did she mean soccer? Did she have an American underwriter? I believe the ending was meant to be ambiguous as Martha Grimes often does in her writing, but an editor added a last chapter to "clear things up" and screwed up the entire book M Grimes had written. The general voice of the writing was Martha Grimes but there was an underwriter (probably American) that didn't get it. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.

Not a finished satisfying mystery!

This was not a satisfying mystery in any way! It’s sad! As a long time Martha Grimes fan it’s heartbreaking! How did her editors let this book be published as written!? It’s more of an outline sketch of a story than an actual novel. Just WOW! And not in a good way!

Just a wonderful as ever

It felt so good to get back into Jury land. I hope we get more new novels. Listening to this one has made me want to start at the beginning of the series again.

Poor entry in the Jury series

This was a big disappointment compared to other Richard Jury books. Confusing, poor plot - almost like stream of consciousness musings.

Melrose & Jury have lost their swag. Sad.

The murder itself was far-fetched, as was the "solution". I am still uncertain who did what to Whom nor why. Then Melrose - who has always been my favorite character, sounded more like a stuck-in-the-mud elderly person than the smart, chic cat we knew him to be. And who in heck was that Wiggans? I can't go on with this. So disappointed. Ms Grimes is 94. I can't believe that she wrote this. There must be thieves in the temple. Please.

curious

Throughout most of this I wasn't sure what was going on. The story was lost in a mass of unnecessary details about things that had no bearing on the plot and grown men bickering about this and that. I stuck with it for the entertaining British characters and the performance of them. At the conclusion I still didn't know for sure who dunnit or how. Or why it was named Red Queen.

Confusing

Sad ending to a great series. Plot unforgivably tangled, secondary plot a hot mess. This was a tragedy that should have never made it past a rookie editor.

Not good

Either Grimes wrote it on auto-pilot or someone else wrote it. So disappointing. Trite, predictable...

No plot. Just awful. Such a disappointment

Steve West is a good narrator but he couldn’t save this disjointed mess. Don’t waste a credit.