It's been years since I last read a Martha Grimes book. As far as I can remember, the last I read was The Five Bells and Bladebone (Richard Jury #9). I can't exactly remember the first story of the author that I read. As I scanned through the titles of her books, only The Five Bells and Bladebone was familiar. It may seem that I have only read two of her books but I felt like I had been reading her works a lot more than that. As far as I can remember, I may have met the the author through an issue of The Reader's Digest Condensed Books. I have enjoyed her books so much that she had been on my favorite authors list.
As I noticed, Martha Grimes has a penchant for naming her books uniquely. For this book for example, I kept asking when will she reveal why she called this Help the Poor Struggler. I was so curious why and fortunately, it was explained almost on the last of the story. I was actually surprised where the title came from but it did make a lot of sense and in fact summarized the whole plot. I think one of the reasons why I got drawn to her was because of her very intriguing titles. And her writing is very suspenseful and riveting that you will keep wanting to read her books. Finding her books in a second-hand bookstore is like a discovering a treasure. I made sure that I hold on to the copy very tightly so no one could take it.
I didn't realize that most of the author's books or almost all are part of the Richard Jury series. I didn't event realize it's a series. It only dawned on me now. Richard Jury is a Scotland Yard detective and is the main character in this story. In here, Jury is asked to help solve a series of murders of three kids.
As the story progressed, I started to have my list of suspects and started eliminating them as soon as it was proven wrong. When all of the names on my list have been eliminated but one, I started having doubts if my hunch was correct. I was unsure until the true murderer was revealed. I was astonished because my hunch was correct but I had my doubts. The author's writing was just so unexpected and things were so uncertain until they slowly unraveled. It seemed that things could go any way possible. Anything can happen. I was really riveted to how Jury tried to leave no stone unturned. In the end, his instincts and keen attention to details paid off. He caught the killer and removed suspicion on the person who was purported to be doing all the killings.
This was a superbly done story and the suspense and uncertainty was almost too hard to take. This was pure good old-school detective work at its best. I give the book 5/5 mugs of beer. This book just reminded me of why I came to love suspense, mystery and thrillers.
I seem to not find any marked page or highlighted lines in my paperback of this book. So, Instead of the usual quote from the book, let me just give you an observation or trivia. It seemed that this book happen have a lot of covers. Per Wikipedia, a movie (in behalf of Austrian and German broadcasters) has also been made based on this story and two other stories by the same author such as The Man with a Load of Mischief and The Deer Leap.
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