Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck (USA 2013)

From the Publisher:
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.

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck. A Richard Jury Mystery. Scribner eBook, ISBN: 9781476732862 (March, 2013), 3616 KB (ca. 324 p.), $11.99.

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck (USA 2004)

From the Publisher:
It's a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions for Scotland Yard's Richard Jury...
Superintendent Richard Jury has been wrong before. But when stating that "nothing ever happens in Stratford," he never imagined just how wrong he could be. Besides the stage murders committed nightly at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a real one has been performed not far from a popular pub known as The Dirty Duck. The killer has left behind a fragment of Elizabethan verse -- a rhyme that could mean death with each new line...

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck. A Richard Jury Novel. Onyx Books, ISBN: 0451411390 (June, 2004), 303 p., $7.99.

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck (USA 1988)

From the Publisher:
"Nothing ever happens in Stratford," insisted Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard. Unfortunately, he was wrong. Besides the stage murders commited nightly at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a real one had been performed not far from the Dirty Duck, a popular pub. The victim had been a member of an exclusive group too: Those rare homicidal maniacs compelled to leave an intentional clue - in this case, a fragment of Elizabethan verse.

Now a nine-year old boy from the same tour had vanished and Jury was worried. For, if the killer intended to finish the rhyme, would it spell death for Stratford with each new line?

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck. Dell, ISBN: 0440120500 (September, 1988), 240 p., $4.50.

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck (UK 1987)

From the Publisher:
Stratford-on-Avon is more renowned for its Shakespeare than its slaughter. And, despite its name, The Dirty Duck pub had enjoyed a blameless reputation until an innocent American tourist took her last drink there before being brutally murdered. Superintendent Richard Jury, visiting friends in the neighbourhood, finds himself at the centre of the hunt for the killer. The only clue is a blood-stained theatre programme, left on the victim's body.

With the welcome assistance of the aristocratic Melrose Plant - and the very unwelcome attentions of Plant's formidable Aunt Agatha - Jury must track down a murderer who intends to kill, and kill again, until he has achieved his deadly ends...

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck. A Richard Jury Case. Headline, ISBN: 0747230048 (June, 1987), 240 p., £2.50.

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck (USA 1985)

From the Publisher:
"Nothing ever happens in Stratford," insisted Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard. Unfortunately, he was wrong. Besides the stage murders commited nightly at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a real one had been performed not far from the Dirty Duck, a popular pub. The victim had been a member of an exclusive group too: Those rare homicidal maniacs compelled to leave an intentional clue - in this case, a fragment of Elizabethan verse.

Now a nine-year old boy from the same tour had vanished and Jury was worried. For, if the killer intended to finish the rhyme, would it spell death for Stratford with each new line?

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck. Dell, ISBN: 0440120500 (May, 1985), 240 p., $3.50.

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck (USA 1984)

From the Publisher:
Martha Grimes has stepped without a lurch into the formidable British brogues of Agatha and Dorothy... She is, for even fuller measure, a writer to relish." The New Yorker

In this fourth ingenious adventure by the new star of mystery writers, Martha Grimes returns with her master of detection, Richard Jury, Detective Superintendent, Scoland Yard. Jury is shrewd, charming, kind, perceptive, and neatly unflappable -- except in the presence of bewitching eyes and precocious children. He needs all his wits and the help of his aristocratic unofficial aide Melrose Plant to track down a most complex murderer.

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, just behind the Church of the Holy Trinity, she is dead, her throat 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 Superintendent Jury just passing through Stratford for a glimpse of the intriguing Lady Kennington, instead takes crash course in the bloodier side of Elizabethan verse.

Martha Grimes' sharply observant eye for social comedy lets loose on this wrey pairing of Shakespeare and unattractive as perfectly cast as the frustrated Gwendolyne -- from a rich Southern coal miner to a computer fanatic from New Jersey. We are thus stylishly distracted while Jury decodes the slasher's poetic calling cards.

Yes, this sly and classic novel of detection continues the spirit of Christie, Allingham, Sayers, and Marsh. But readers will relish as well the superb flair, irony, and wit that Martha Grimes has made inimitably her own.

Martha Grimes: The Dirty Duck. Little, Brown, & Co., ISBN: 0316328839 (April, 1984), 240 p., $14.95.