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Feb. 10th, 2020 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI'm still reading Inspector Alleyn books! Over the past year I read five, and then one more this past week, so it seemed a reasonable time for a pause to write them up. I still have many of the same qualms about these books that I've had since the beginning -- there's a kind of fundamental people-compassion that I often, unfortunately, walk away feeling a bit like Marsh lacks -- but there were a few in this bunch that I genuinely enjoyed!
So, in addition to previous Alleyns, I have now read:
Overture to Death, a good old-fashioned small-town murder mystery featuring an incredible sweet elderly parson who's unfortunately irresistible to his romantically inclined parishioners and a murder via exploding piano. This was the first one I read in 2019 and I finished it thinking "ah yes, THIS nonsense is what I want out of my 1930s murder mysteries! more exploding pianos please!
Death at the Bar, which I thought was going to be about lawyers but turned out to instead involve a literal bar and an ingenious murder via dartboard; despite the cleverness of the murder method I did not end up much liking this one, which not only had a snide attitude towards young radicals but bait-and-switched me into thinking it might be uncharacteristically sympathetic towards the plight of ex-convicts and then turned out to be instead the very reverse.
A Surfeit of Lampreys, which feels like Marsh really wanted to write a charmingly bittersweet comedy of manners about an affectionately dysfunctional family that has just realized their carefree way of life is unsustainable, and then remembered that murder mysteries are what they pay her for and belatedly added in a murder plot for everyone to be stressed about. I enjoyed her charmingly bittersweet comedy of manners though! I would happily have read more of them! It's amazing how much more fun Marsh is when she really does want you to like most of the people involved.
Death and the Dancing Footmman, which is not a book in which Ngaio Marsh wants you to like most of the characters, but which I really enjoyed regardless. A bored artist plans a dinner party as a kind of performance art for his own entertainment in which all of the guests have dramatic beef of some sort or another with at least one of the other guests; he is shocked! and appalled!! when this results in MURDER!!! On the one hand I completely mis-guessed the murderer but on the other hand the mystery prominently featured an old-timey radio, which is my jam, so on the cowhole I pronounce myself satisfied.
Colour Blind, in which Ngaio Marsh is, I believe, really, genuinely trying not to be racist about Maori people, and yet. Anyway, there's a weird family that runs a mud bath spa near a Maori village, and a murder at the mud bath spa, and a pretentious Shakespearean actor and his long-suffering secretary; I did like the long-suffering secretary. Also this one is during the war and instead of solving mysteries full-time Alleyn is fighting espionage in New Zealand and just solving mysteries when they happen to overlap with the espionage, which it turns out is surprisingly often.
Died in the Wool, in which Ngaio Marsh is not at ALL attempting not to be horribly racist about Japanese people; not a major part of the plot but worth noting all the same for sheer virulence. This one's about the possibly-spying-related death of an officious New Zealand MP, and at first I had strong concerns that we would be treated to a caricaturish moral about female politicans and how they neglect their poor long-suffering husbands, but in fact the posthumous portrait of the victim turned out more interesting and complicated than I feared -- not positive, per se, but nuanced. So, in retrospect, I quite liked it aside from the racism. Which is of course a fairly large aside. I do in fact quite like Marsh when she gets nuanced, it's just I find it hard to trust her in advance.
So, in addition to previous Alleyns, I have now read:
Overture to Death, a good old-fashioned small-town murder mystery featuring an incredible sweet elderly parson who's unfortunately irresistible to his romantically inclined parishioners and a murder via exploding piano. This was the first one I read in 2019 and I finished it thinking "ah yes, THIS nonsense is what I want out of my 1930s murder mysteries! more exploding pianos please!
Death at the Bar, which I thought was going to be about lawyers but turned out to instead involve a literal bar and an ingenious murder via dartboard; despite the cleverness of the murder method I did not end up much liking this one, which not only had a snide attitude towards young radicals but bait-and-switched me into thinking it might be uncharacteristically sympathetic towards the plight of ex-convicts and then turned out to be instead the very reverse.
A Surfeit of Lampreys, which feels like Marsh really wanted to write a charmingly bittersweet comedy of manners about an affectionately dysfunctional family that has just realized their carefree way of life is unsustainable, and then remembered that murder mysteries are what they pay her for and belatedly added in a murder plot for everyone to be stressed about. I enjoyed her charmingly bittersweet comedy of manners though! I would happily have read more of them! It's amazing how much more fun Marsh is when she really does want you to like most of the people involved.
Death and the Dancing Footmman, which is not a book in which Ngaio Marsh wants you to like most of the characters, but which I really enjoyed regardless. A bored artist plans a dinner party as a kind of performance art for his own entertainment in which all of the guests have dramatic beef of some sort or another with at least one of the other guests; he is shocked! and appalled!! when this results in MURDER!!! On the one hand I completely mis-guessed the murderer but on the other hand the mystery prominently featured an old-timey radio, which is my jam, so on the cowhole I pronounce myself satisfied.
Colour Blind, in which Ngaio Marsh is, I believe, really, genuinely trying not to be racist about Maori people, and yet. Anyway, there's a weird family that runs a mud bath spa near a Maori village, and a murder at the mud bath spa, and a pretentious Shakespearean actor and his long-suffering secretary; I did like the long-suffering secretary. Also this one is during the war and instead of solving mysteries full-time Alleyn is fighting espionage in New Zealand and just solving mysteries when they happen to overlap with the espionage, which it turns out is surprisingly often.
Died in the Wool, in which Ngaio Marsh is not at ALL attempting not to be horribly racist about Japanese people; not a major part of the plot but worth noting all the same for sheer virulence. This one's about the possibly-spying-related death of an officious New Zealand MP, and at first I had strong concerns that we would be treated to a caricaturish moral about female politicans and how they neglect their poor long-suffering husbands, but in fact the posthumous portrait of the victim turned out more interesting and complicated than I feared -- not positive, per se, but nuanced. So, in retrospect, I quite liked it aside from the racism. Which is of course a fairly large aside. I do in fact quite like Marsh when she gets nuanced, it's just I find it hard to trust her in advance.
