RogerBW's Blog

False Scent, Ngaio Marsh 03 September 2017

1960 classic English detective fiction; twenty-first of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The famous comedic actress Mary Bellamy has been getting increasingly troublesome, and now feels that all of her best friends have betrayed her. But only one of them is going to kill her.

The means of murder is treated as a mystery, though the components of it are heavily foreshadowed in the text and indeed in the title. Mostly this story is about the people, and in particular two of the servants: the dresser, who's Mary's devoted partisan, and the family nurse, who's thrown in more with Mary's adopted son (who is a standard Marsh Young Lover, and whom one therefore assumes will turn out to be innocent, but who is nonetheless a suspect thanks to his wish to conceal certain information). Both those servants are horrible people, but in their own distinctive ways, and their interaction determines much of the course of the investigation.

"I've been talking," Mr. Fox remarked, "to a press photographer and the servants."

"And I," Alleyn said sourly, "have been eavesdropping on a pair of lovers. How low can you get? Next stop, with Polonius behind the arras in a bedroom."

The action takes place almost entirely in one house, over a single evening, and one assumes that as before Marsh was consciously using a theatrical arrangement even though there's no evidence that she ever tried to adapt this or her other "theatre" mysteries as plays.

The person was subjected to masterful but tactful discipline. That which, unsubjected, declared itself centrally, was forced to make a less aggressive reappearance above the seventh rib where it was trapped, confined and imperceptibly distributed.

It's all portrayed as a bit of a lark at times, in spite of the murder, but everyone has something to hide, and sooner or later they get round to confessing it. Alleyn doesn't get to display as much personality as usual, which is a shame, but Fox is back and on fine form.

Bellamy herself is something of a stereotype, the ageing actress ferociously jealous of younger women, but some of the other characters manage similar situations without throwing tantrums; this is not so much Marsh's supposed misogyny as Marsh's dislike of a certain style of personality.

There's a startling mention of "non-U" language (oh yes, that happened in the 1950s, didn't it?), which is really the only thing that makes this a post-war book; it could easily have been set earlier.

"So you were right, Mr. Alleyn."

"And what satisfaction," Alleyn said wryly, "is to be had out of that?"

Followed by Hand in Glove.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Singing in the Shrouds | Series: Roderick Alleyn | Next in series: Hand In Glove

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1