The Richard Jury Series
"The first novel by Grimes, The Man with a Load of Mischief (1981), introduces the reader to two detectives. One, Inspector Richard Jury, is a professional policeman. The other, Melrose Plant, is a part-time academic and an aristocrat who has renounced his title. Each man has his own assistant; Jury has the hypochondriac Wiggins and Plant has the irritating Aunt Agatha. Wiggins and Agatha bring light relief into the novels while they stimulate the two detectives to solve the crimes. In the characters of the two detectives, Grimes alludes to Sayers's aristocratic Lord Wimsey and Christie's refined professional Hercule Poirot.
"The murders in The Man with a Load of Mischief are centered around the pubs in a small countryside hamlet. They are bizarre and resemble the name of the pub where the body is found. In this story Jury and Wiggins are interlopers intruding into a sleepy village in order to reassert normality. Plant is both an insider and an outsider. He is one of the community, yet he stands apart from the rest of the villagers because of his title. This position makes him the ideal source of information for Jury. Together Jury and Plant discover the identity of the murderer, and the equilibrium village life is restored." -- Samantha J. Barber, Contemporary Popular Writers, edited by Dave Mote, St. James Press, 1997
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