THE (SCOTTSDALE) TRIBUNE
Sunday, September 22, 2002
BY BETTY WEBB
"The Grave Maurice" is the 18th Richard Jury mystery Martha Grimes has named after English pubs, and by now, people are beginning to ask her if she's ready to kill her detective off yet.
"I always laugh when they ask me that," Grimes says. "There's an assumption that I must be getting sick of him, but that's not true. Yes, I almost killed him in 'The Blue Last,' but that was necessary for the ending of that particular book. Nothing more."
Grimes is also alert to the fact that many people consider her mysteries to be almost two books in one: a more-or-less conventional mystery starring Jury, and a social satire starring Jury's aristocratic friend Melrose Plant, the eight Earl of Caverness, and his amazingly snooty/silly friends.
"I didn't consciously decide to write social satire part, but I did get such a kick out of Melrose's associates," Grimes admits. "They're irritating to some of the critics, though. Publishers Weekly actually wrote, 'Reading a book by Martha Grimes is like watching a TV program and being continuously interrupted by commercials!' Well, I think that's just genre stereotyping."
Grimes does understand that much of the Melrose Plant material was excised from the audio-book version of "The Grave Maurice."
"They thought it was extraneous because none of those people were directly involved in the Jury mystery," she says. The mystery in "The Grave Maurice" is certainly shocking enough to exist on its own. Jury, recuperating from the injuries he sustained in The Blue Last," takes on the disappearance of his surgeon's teenaged daughter, Nell Ryder. Ever since she and the valuable thoroughbred Aqueduct vanished, the Ryder Stud Farm along with its owners has begun to fall apart.
Where "The Grave Maurice" also departs from the standard mystery format is in its impassioned message about the abuse of horses used in the manufacture of Premarin, a drug used in hormone replacement therapy (pregnant mare's urine is used to make the drug).
The scenes involving the horses and their treatment are excruciating to read, and should make any woman currently taking the drug think twice about it.
"Most of the horses used for the manufacture of Premarin are in North Dakota and Canada," explains Grimes. "The treatment of these poor animals is inexcusable, really unbelievable. Although I'd been supporting animal welfare organizations for years and thought I was pretty well-versed on some of the horrors our society visits upon our
animal friends, I was totally unprepared for what I found out about the Premarin mares, as they're called. I was simply staggered by the cruelty."
Grimes is now helping to fund an investigation into these farms, and urges her female readers to check with their doctors to see if an alternative to Premarin would appropriate for them. She also wants her readers to visit the web site of Last Chance for Animals, at www.campaigns@lcanimal.org.
"We shouldn't torture animals so so we can avoid hot flashes," she says.
