---
product_id: 15921409
title: "The Man with a Load of Mischief (Richard Jury Mysteries Book 1)"
brand: "martha grimes"
price: "VT7169"
currency: VUV
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.vu/products/15921409-the-man-with-a-load-of-mischief-richard-jury-mysteries
store_origin: VU
region: Vanuatu
---

# The Man with a Load of Mischief (Richard Jury Mysteries Book 1)

**Brand:** martha grimes
**Price:** VT7169
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** The Man with a Load of Mischief (Richard Jury Mysteries Book 1) by martha grimes
- **How much does it cost?** VT7169 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.vu](https://www.desertcart.vu/products/15921409-the-man-with-a-load-of-mischief-richard-jury-mysteries)

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    The Man with a Load of Mischief by Martha Grimes: A review
  

*by P***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 12, 2014*

I've decided to give myself a treat with my summer reading by indulging mostly in my guilty pleasures - that is to say mysteries. And in so doing, I plan to delve into some of the series which I haven't sampled before, starting with Martha Grimes' Inspector Richard Jury series.This has been recommended to me at various times over the years, but, for some reason, I just never got into it. Maybe because I was busy reading several other series. But time to break new ground and meet some new characters.One would think that a book featuring a New Scotland Yard detective inspector as its main character would be a police procedural type, but this, I think, falls more in the "cozy" category. While Inspector Jury may be the main character, the story is set in a small village and there are various eccentric villagers who "assist the police in their inquiries," and we see much of the story through their eyes.The village is Long Piddleton - Long Pidd to the locals. It is a quaint little place that has recently been discovered by Londoners seeking a refuge from the hurly burly of city life. It is a village where nothing of note ever happens. And then the murders start.First, the body of a stranger to the village is found with his head stuck in a barrel of beer in the cellar of one of the village pubs. But before he was put in the barrel, he was strangled with a wire. This all happened while the pub was busy with patrons, but nobody saw a thing.Within twenty-four hours, another body is found at another village pub - this one stuck on a beam over the pub's name sign. And then the whole thing just gets silly. People are dropping like flies and there are few clues to indicate what is going on.The thing is that all of the victims at first are supposedly unknown to the villagers and seem to have no connection to Long Pidd. But Jury is quite sure that there must be a connection if only he can find it.One of Long Piddleton's own, Melrose Plant, a former lord who gave up his title, then finds another dead body. But this one breaks the pattern. It is a local girl, maid to the vicar, who had recently left town (she said) to visit her family. Plant becomes fascinated by the murders and turns into an amateur sleuth, helping Inspector Jury root out the source of evil in his village. Comic relief is provided by Plant's overbearing Aunt Agatha who fancies herself a modern-day Miss Marple.In fact, one of the most fun things about this book was its gentle humor. Several of the characters are quirky to the point of peculiarity and they provide a lot of leavening for this essentially straightforward tale of greed gone wild.I found The Man with a Load of Mischief  to be a very light and pleasant read, almost perfect for a summer day. True, the last 15% or so of the book began to drag just a bit, after Jury had already solved the mystery and the culprit had been arrested, but, overall, I enjoyed it and I'm moving on to the second entry in the series. There are twenty-three Inspector Richard Jury books in total and I expect to continue reading my way through them in coming months and years. Fun times ahead!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Worth Reading for the Main Characters
  

*by A***. on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 14, 2018*

I've read the first 10 books in the series and thought it was time for to come back and leave a review. What I like and dislike has remained very consistent for all of the books. I'm still reading, so clearly the likes outweigh the dislikes!What is great: the main characters. Jury and Plant are very well developed, believable, and likable characters. Their interactions are always fun and believable. Wiggins could have been nothing more than a caricature with his extreme hypochondria, but he has enough useful insights to contribute to all the cases that it balances out the constant medicating. Agatha is the relative everyone loves to hate. The author is wise enough to keep doses of Agatha to a minimum, which let's you enjoy her without getting sick of her. I like that the interactions among the characters always seem genuine. I like that, at least so far, these books have not turned into romances. There are occasional love affairs, but nothing that has distracted from the main focus of the stories.What I dislike: as with Wiggins, the author tends to make secondary characters so over the top that it can be a little grating. Another example, without too much of a spoiler, involves Plant and Trueblood meddling in Vivian's life to the point where it passes funny and goes into the realm of just wanting everyone to move on already. The author also tends to spend a lot of time describing in pages worth of detail the thoughts of characters that are extremely minor. For example, you might be treated to ten pages of the ruminations of a cab driver who is driving Plant to a location.  You might listen to a suspect talk forever about some particular interest of theirs, and all the ramblings have nothing to do with moving the story forward. When it's a main character, I can see it as development, but in these cases it feels like the author is padding the book to try to meet some kind of minimum page requirement.The cases themselves vary.  Some have been great, but some have been uneven in believability. Fortunately, so far only one has been so unbelievable as to be ridiculous, and that one at least was good up until the big reveal. I've found them all to progress well- the ones that do go south at least keep you following until the end.I hope as I continue through the books, the author will spend more time on the main characters, Plant and Jury (and Wiggins), and a bit less on so many side characters and all their ruminations on things neither relevant or interesting.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Just as good now as it was in the 1980s.
  

*by J***Y on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 8, 2018*

I began reading these mystery novels centered around English pubs in the early 1980s. This is the first Richard Jury, published in 1981, so I decided to spend some time reading this one again to see how it stands up for me after such a long time. I'm glad to say it was every bit as satisfying today as it was then. Martha Grimes gave me so much information regarding the historical meanings of pub signs. I love learning the origins of things such as the pub signs and seeing how they have been changed through history so that their original meaning is almost gone. Richard Jury is the Scotland Yard man who comes to Long Piddleton to investigate the murders of two men who were strangers in the village but who died in very unusual circumstances at two local pubs.Once more I connected with Jury and Melrose Plant - who acts as Jury's Watson - as well as Plant's Aunt Agatha, American and obnoxious to boot. Jury's interactions with the Doubles children puts him firmly in the category of approachable policeman and gives the reader lighter moments to enjoy while not completely abandoning the hunt for the killer. This is one of those *timing* mysteries so the only niggle I had was that the intricate timing wasn't fully revealed in the solution. Not to worry though, I'm still looking forward to reading the second in the series. Included with the digital copy of this book is an excerpt from Vertigo 42, another Richard Jury novel which was released in 2014.

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*Store origin: VU*
*Last updated: 2026-03-07*