The Right Jack

I love Margaret Maron's style, her prose. It's a game for me to try to solve the mystery before the sleuth. In this book, which gets its title from the cribbage tournament during which the murders occur, I figured out who did it from the first description of a person of interest. The author had gone out of her way to make this entity as different from the murderer as possible. This happened a quarter to a third of the way into the book. However, this did not spoil my enjoyment of the book as I continued to watch Sigird unravel the plot, each successive clue further validating my theory. Maron is always a great read!

Although the story is excellent, I would not recommend the Severn House edition to a collector. The printing quality is poor. The print is too dark and a bit blurry. In some cases the characters bleed together. In addition the ink does not cover each typed character, a factor which contributes to the blurring.

Margaret Maron's mysteries tend to be very predictable. Generally, it doesn't take too long to figure out whodunit. This is a fun book because of the cribbage element. For cribbage players, this is a must read. This isn't the best in the series, she hasn't yet mastered suspensefullness, but it's still a good read.

I just wanted to add that I also thought this was a really good mystery. I enjoyed it very much.

I've read each of Maron's books at least three times; the first time to read the story, and afterwards for the pleasure of visiting her characters AND rereading the story. Her scenario does not pall because you now know the ending. I've been reading mysteries for 50 years, starting with Nancy Drew, and I didn't think any writer could come up with a denouement that I hadn't figured out. Maron has surprised me every single time. And her protagonist, Lt. Sigrid Harald, plus all the secondary characters (like Sigrid's sidekick, Detective Tilden--who figures largely in "The Right Jack") are so 3-dimensional that they become valued friends. Maron's other strengths include writing well (and grammatically) so that you are not irritated in that vein. She is only a step behind Thomas Perry and Nicholas Blake in sheer writing talent, but ahead of everyone in writing a mystery with a guaranteed surprise ending that is fair and legitimate. As you gasp at the solution, you realize there are many clues sprinkled throughout the preceding pages. I found her talent for writing mysteries superior to Christie, Sayers, Rendall, James, and even Tey! I also recommend her Judge Deborah Knott mysteries; they are equally superb.