Martha Grimes. I Am the Only Running Footman (1986)

     Martha Grimes. I Am the Only Running Footman (1986) Grimes has a very high reputation, but if this book is a fair sample of her work, I think it’s undeserved. The plotting is muzzy, with a lot of necessary information withheld until near the end, the characterisation is superficial and derivative, and the resolution is unsatisfactory. I suppose a good team could make a decent movie out of this book --  certainly a lot of the writing seems based on some inner screen vision of the scene -- but as it stands I was disappointed. Richard Jury is the cop, two girls are the victims, a dysfunctional but fiercely loyal family is the link (and one of the family is the murderer). The writing is cute, and in place self-consciously funny. Grimes is American, and critics have acclaimed her skill at doing the British atmosphere. Not at all. It’s all very Masterpiece Theatre, and really doesn’t work. Perhaps the fact that this book comes well along in the series is at fault; we are supposed to know why Melrose Plant appears, for example. But other characters, such as the St Clairs and the Warboys, have no function other than lugubrious, oh so veddy British comic relief. I won’t be reading another of these books. * (2003)