Cocktail Talk: The Five Bells and Bladebone
I’ve had a few Martha Grimes Cocktail Talks on the Spiked Punch in the past, and now it’s time for another! From a book of hers I recently picked up called The Five Bells and Bladebone, which may seem a rather odd name for a book. But it’s taken from an English pub (which might differ in one space from the book title, that being between blade and bone), as are all the books I’ve read by Martha Grimes, and a big portion of all the books she wrote – so far, as she’s still alive at 93, and might write more! These titles and the pubs contained within the books makes said books, as you might expect, ripe for Cocktail Talking. That’s not the only reason for reading them, naturally, as she writes a fairly good mystery yarn, too, featuring her crime-solving, somehow wistful to me (as wistful as a hunky tall dude can be), Inspector Jury, alongside, for some of the time, his pal and sometimes helper Melrose Plant, who was an English Lord (before giving up the title, though perhaps not some of the lord-y-ness), and his always-sick-talking hypochondriacal sidekick sergeant Wiggins. I perhaps didn’t love this book of hers as much as past ones I’ve read, but it’s still well worth tracking down, and not just because one character drinks whiskey out of a toothbrush glass, as you’ll see below.
Jury half rose, but she was already out of her chair, moving quickly and purposefully towards her target. All of her movements were quick and purposeful, thought Jury. If this was Lady Summerston sick, he be almost afraid to see Lady Summerston well.
Her voice preceded her as she returned with the picture. As if reading his mind, she was saying, “I imagine Crick told you I had a heart condition, a lung condition, a live condition. The last might be true, but not the first two. There’s a decanter of whiskey on the bureau. Get it, will you? And” – she called after him – “ get the toothbrush glass from the bathroom.”
— Martha Grimes, The Five Bells and Bladebone
