Death in Ecstasy, Ngaio Marsh

Well, I guess I’d better give up the disclaimer about what I think of these. They’re harmless, easy fun, concerned with setting up a puzzle and then working it out, with lots of red herrings and interesting people along the way. Nothing ground breaking, but comfortable.

This one did give me a little bit of unease because of the swishy, blatantly queer couple who were a walking, talking pair of stereotypes. At least they were harmless, but Marsh wrote about them rather unpleasantly and nobody thought any good of them. At least Alleyn, as I imagine him, wouldn’t be an ass to them in person about it, but would respect their relationship (as long as he thought it was real, not just theatrics and melodrama). I suppose I am getting to like him, though I think I’m building on him in my own mind more than Marsh is in the text.

This one only slightly breaks the trend — there’s no reconstruction, though the group do gather together again to talk it over, which is pretty close.

The statement I spotted in another review that Nigel Bathgate does nothing and could he please be murdered now is sadly accurate. The one point I liked was when Alleyn rings up and tells him to act as if he’s talking to Angela. That was a bit amusing.

Rating: 3/5

The Nursing Home Murder, Ngaio Marsh

This is my third Ngaio Marsh novel and I still have somewhat mixed feelings. I’m not into her detective character at all — there’s been too little personality and depth, just a lot of surface shine — and the structure is now formulaic. Set-up for a murder with many potential motives -> murder which is very awkward for lots of people -> Alleyn investigates without explaining much to anyone -> Alleyn has a reconstruction done -> this flushes out the murderer, who incriminates himself without need for a trial, and who is the least suspected person -> an epilogue in which Alleyn explains everything.

I have got the next three books now, though. There’s something relaxing and easy about these, even a little compulsive, perhaps because I don’t care much for the characters and so for me, there are no high stakes. Generally the plots are full of coincidence, misdirection, and meta-nods at the genre (“if this were a murder story, you would suspect the least obvious one, of course!”).

I think you could pretty much class these as cozy mysteries.

Rating: 3/5

Enter a Murderer, Ngaio Marsh

I found this a bit more engaging than the first book, and more plausible besides in the way the murder is worked out, but I’m still not sure what I think of Marsh’s work, or perhaps specifically Alleyn. I haven’t got a handle on him at all; I can never quite tell what he’s meant to be thinking, what he’ll do, and whether he thinks it’s awful fun or perfectly awful, except when we’re directly told. Perhaps the alternating, alienating POVs of him and then Bathgate don’t help there. For all that they’re supposed to be friends, I can’t for the life of me understand why.

Still, I cared more about the mystery in this one, and read it all in one go. And I’ve ordered the second omnibus, because I sense that this ambivalence might go on a while. We’ll see, I suppose.

Rating: 3/5