The Grace in Older Women - Softcover

Gash, Jonathan

3.66

111 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140246622 ISBN 13: 9780140246629

Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 1996

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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.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Antiques divvy and sometimes shady dealer Lovejoy is becoming a caricature of his former self: scruffier, sneakier, ruder, more pusillanimous ("I'm pathetic, always terrified, always losing, hopeless"). He's copulating with more mature ladies, and nausea has replaced the dulcet chest chimes that used to alert him to genuine art treasures. At least this adventure (following The Sin Within Her Smile) brings him back to East Anglia, ever his optimum setting. Things turn truly sour for Lovejoy when his friend Tryer, proprietor of a mobile sex museum, is murdered. As he investigates, Lovejoy tries to understand the strange decline of the village of Fenstone (formerly Middle Snorting) and to cope with a gaggle of forgettable American tourists and their British cohorts. The older women of the title have considerable charm-"'Courage, Philadora,' she said quietly. 'Lovejoy doesn't want weak-willed vicarage ladies. He needs partners of mettle.'" Interesting asides abound: discussions of "tomorrow auctions" and penis rings, startling disclosures about Bonnie Prince Charlie and John F. Kennedy and Lovejoy's preparations for his big exhibition of fakes and forgeries. The motive for all the mayhem is ludicrously limp, but the denouement is quite delightful.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

That old reprobate Lovejoy--randy, irreverent, and lovable--is back in yet another delightful romp. After 16 Lovejoy books, Gash has the formula for success down pat, but he's never repetitive--each story is more outrageously fun and funny than the last. In this outing, Lovejoy not only appreciates "the grace and charm in older women" of the title, but if truth be told, he waxes rhapsodic about all women. The two Misses Dewhurst, tearoom proprietors and refined spinsters with a zodiacal bent, inform Lovejoy that he's now "on their team" since his Obverse Zodiac sign is a perfect match with theirs. While poor, puzzled Lovejoy is still trying to make sense of this perplexing proposal, his old friend Tryer, owner of the mobile Sex Museum, is found murdered; Lovejoy is relentlessly pursued by the mysterious Miss Juliana Witherspoon; and his pals want his help with another creative heist. Somehow, all these diverse roads seem to lead Lovejoy to the mysteriously dying town of Middle Snoring. As usual, Lovejoy's adventures, whether in print or on the popular cable television series, evoke giggles, guffaws, and belly laughs; the breadth of his antiques knowledge evokes awe; and his "divvying" skills and creative scams elicit jealous admiration. A delight! Emily Melton

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