Friday, 5 July 2019

Vintage Murder - Ngaio Marsh


We're in the Antipodes for this one, and Inspector Alleyn, supposedly convalescing from an unspecified illness (although I can’t help noticing that his convalescence seems to consist of travelling halfway round the world, taking a long sea voyage by himself and following it up with a seat in a crowded overnight train. And this all before the murder has taken place, and he's forced to stay up until the wee small hours chatting and smoking with the local fuzz.) has fallen in with a touring theatre company. 

Unfortunately despite the friendly family atmosphere of the firm (Incorporated Playwrights or, as they affectionally call it ‘Inky P’), there are undercurrents. Actual robbery and attempted murder have occurred before they even get off that train, and yet no-one wants to call the police.

The next step, of course, is actual murder.

As is usually the case in Marsh the supporting characters are a joy and the author seems to having a lot of fun with them – there’s Susan Max, who we first saw in Enter a Murderer, and the ‘leading lady’ who Alleyn half falls in love with and interviews by taking her out for a picnic. 

The police officers are less differentiated and more in the nature of comic relief. All of them have read Alleyn’s book on police procedure (which, judging from the last couple of books, presumably contains such gems of advice as ‘scare ‘em with a reconstruction’ and ‘spike their drink if it helps’) and are just a bit too starry eyed to be believed. Alleyn, in his turn, is maddeningly self-deprecating and terribly, terribly polite (even after one of the idiots gets himself stuck behind a shed whilst chasing a suspect.)

There is a Maori doctor portrayed in what was undoubtedly a sensitive and broadminded way at the time, although there is a kind of 'otherness' to it that made me just a little uncomfy.    

And the murderer? Well I didn’t spot the murderer either time, so that’s all to the good.

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