The Grace in Older Women

Lovejoy #18

by Jonathan Gash

Investigating the murder of his friend, Tryer, Lovejoy teams up with Tryer's girlfriend and a pair of wizened spinsters to discover how the torching of Tryer's mobile "Sex Museum" is linked to the dying village of Fenstone. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 1995

About the author

John Grant is an English crime writer, who writes under the pen name Jonathan Gash. He is the author of the Lovejoy series of novels. He wrote the novel The Incomer under the pen name Graham Gaunt.

Grant is a doctor by training and worked as a general practitioner and pathologist. He served in the British Army and attained the rank of Major in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was head of bacteriology at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for the University of London between 1971 and 1988.

Grant won the John Creasey Award in 1977 for his first Lovejoy novel, The Judas Pair. He is also the author of a series of medical thrillers featuring the character Dr. Clare Burtonall.

Grant lives outside Colchester in Essex, the setting for many of his novels. He has also been published in Postscripts.

Reviews

[Jeff Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, after a disappointing run of books, set in various foreign countries, where Lovejoy was taken out of his comfort zone Jonathan Gash finally returns the character to his native East Anglia. "The Grace in Older Women" plays to the strengths of Lovejoy, a jack the lad who comes up with scam to put on an auction of fake items with a ringer to tempt an unscrupulous client. Needless to say it's nothing is what it's seems.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a breakneck race to the finish! Subplots on his subplots and some of them don't even make sense but the pace is so fast and lively and complicated that when you get to the end you just say "let's go again!"

[Lila · Rating 3 out of 5]

With this Lovejoy mystery, you just go along for the ride. Somehow a exhibit of antique fakes get stolen and auctioned off, Lovejoy has at least three women arguing over him, but a pair of spinster sisters get the last word.

[elderfoil...the whatever champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

goodness gracious...

[Monica Mason · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was full of meandering thinking. Too many characters with dumb nicknames and associations that buzzed around like annoying mosquitos. Too much slagging of women's character, yet he loves them all. The murder of a friend folds in almost under the radar as a massive gathering of fakes and forgeries for a con game takes centre stage.
I don't remember other Lovejoy books being so unwieldy to slog through, thus I was excited to find one I hadn't read before. Now I think I'm done reading them.

[Austen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dyed-in-the-wool Lovejoy romp: Lovejoy gets used and abused, in trouble with numerous people, with and ending in complete chaos. This book should have been made into one of the Lovejoy television series episodes.

[Peggi Warner-Lalonde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, but more confusing trying to figure out what was going on.