The Dirty Duck

A Richard Jury Mystery, Book 4

By: Martha Grimes

Narrated by: Steve West

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.

©2013 Martha Grimes (P)2013 Simon & Schuster

I love Martha Grimes and all her characters

Steve West is the best. I love Martha Grimes and I really enjoy the performance by Steve West.

Love the novels, but the narrator!!!!

He is hit and miss, if West would just stop trying to sound like a woman, uhg!

This isn't the best story in the series, but i still enjoyed the book. Having read the entire series the characters are my old friends. Jury is the original "Superintendent", melancholic, nostalgic, romantic...

The publisher's summary is accurate if a little vague.

so-so

Brits should not attempt southern US accents. Forced, fake southern accents grate on my nerves

Creative

murder-investigation, law-enforcement, friendship

What a creative tale! The characters certainly are, the venue is odd, the murders are artfully done, the investigation is much like rabbits out of hats, and the humor is sly. But I liked it.
Steve West is rather droll as narrator.

Martha Grimes- even better the second time

Years ago I read (and loved) the Martha Grimes series. Like every other young woman I was in “love” with Richard Jury, the slightly melancholy Scotland Yard detective. Jury and Plant’s characters evolved and plots became even better as the series progressed. I am now listening to the series that I loved so much. It’s as great a pleasure as it was so many years ago.

NOT ONE OF MY FAVORITES

After listening to 3 books in the series back-to-back, I was just beginning to become a fan. However, this story didn't grab me, didn't make sense and the narrator's interpretation of an American accent is dated, unimaginative, and irritating. That whiny mid-west twang is better suited in stories from the late 19th century and early 20th century when people rarely traveled more than 50 miles from home. But now we all know how a mid-Atlantc accent sounds and that all Americans do not sound alike. I feel that the narrator and producer of this installment just got lazy. The book is about an American tour group - how hard would it have been to do a little research!

I am from Texas

There are characters in the story from Virginia. The southern-country accents were so bad I could not listen to them. This would probably read very well. Those accents were like nails on a chalk board.

American Accents Mar Good Listening

For some reason, the voice rendering of one of the main characters irritated me. Petty of me, I know, but it did spoil the overall experience with a book set in Stratford with Shakespeare in the background.

Miss the old narrators

I love that you are doing Martha Grimes early books - love them all. But I do miss the narrating skills of Donada Peters and John Lee.

So confusing!

I love Martha Grimes books, and like so many people I am in it for the characters. The mystery in Grimes’ Jury novels is always a vehicle to let me visit with Jury, Higgins, Melrose etc. But, I have tried to listen to this, skipped forward and back again to avoid feeling annoyed. I am so bewildered by the author’s use of American idioms and language from the 1940’s set in more modern times. As another reviewer pointed out this may be fine for the Brit readers but is such an unnecessary error. “Can you feature that?” For one of Grimes shortest audiobooks in the series, I really hoped and expected to want to know more than “the end.”
The narrator is very professional and I often enjoy him but the children’s accents and voices in general are grating.
Speaking of children, I usually really enjoy it when kids are characters in the Jury series so I was startled by how unmoved I was by this one.
Also, I have to say that a young woman reflecting on enjoying her daddy’s sexual attention was very odd and unexpected for Grimes. Some of the women in this mystery are very poorly treated—by the author.
As much as I was committed to buying all of this series on Audible I will possibly return this one, and trust other reviews. I’ll be giving “The Horse You Came In On” a miss based on reviews that highlight some similar issues.