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Martha Grimes (born May 2, 1931) is an American writer of detective fiction. She is best known for a series featuring Richard Jury, a Scotland Yard inspector. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Grimes was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to William Dermit Grimes, Pittsburgh’s city solicitor, and June Dunnington, who owned the Mountain Lake Hotel in Western Maryland, where Martha and her brother spent much of their childhood. Grimes earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland and did postgraduate work at the University of Iowa. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Frostburg State University, and Montgomery College (Takoma Park). Her page-turning tales fall into the mystery genre referred to as the “literary mystery”, with the emphasis on well-written character-driven stories and less on violence. In 1983, Grimes received the Nero Wolfe Award for best mystery of the year for The Anodyne Necklace . In 2012, Grimes was named Grand Master by the Edgar Awards Mystery Writers of America.
"There are people who read Tolstoy or Dostoevsky who do not insist that their endings be happy or pleasant or, at least, not be depressing. But if you’re writing mysteries – oh, no, you can’t have an ending like that. It must be tidy."
"Writing a mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has a certain framework that must be superimposed over the story."
"I love stories. I just enjoy telling stories and watching what these characters do – although writing continues to be just as hard as it always was. I’m constantly battling writer’s block; it usually takes me two hours to write anything."
"In Baltimore, I was walking with a friend who was playing at a pub he kept referring to as the Horse. But when I saw the sign ‘The Horse You Came In On’ – I thought, ‘My God.’ I had no intention of ever setting a Jury novel in the U.S., but when I saw that, I thought, ‘That’s it.’ The names are very important."
"I’ll see something or hear something. Sometimes, it can be a color. Or a piece of music. Or an image of some kind. I see something, and it has huge emotional weight, although I have no idea why."
"When you write the first book of a series, you do have to be careful what you put in because then you are stuck with it."
"I don’t have to hang around a pub, really, to get an idea. I usually visit it once, get the layout, the atmosphere, the feel of it."
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- - - - - - -"Writing a mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has a certain framework that must be superimposed over the story."
"I love stories. I just enjoy telling stories and watching what these characters do – although writing continues to be just as hard as it always was. I’m constantly battling writer’s block; it usually takes me two hours to write anything."
"In Baltimore, I was walking with a friend who was playing at a pub he kept referring to as the Horse. But when I saw the sign ‘The Horse You Came In On’ – I thought, ‘My God.’ I had no intention of ever setting a Jury novel in the U.S., but when I saw that, I thought, ‘That’s it.’ The names are very important."
"I’ll see something or hear something. Sometimes, it can be a color. Or a piece of music. Or an image of some kind. I see something, and it has huge emotional weight, although I have no idea why."
"When you write the first book of a series, you do have to be careful what you put in because then you are stuck with it."
"I don’t have to hang around a pub, really, to get an idea. I usually visit it once, get the layout, the atmosphere, the feel of it."
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