RogerBW's Blog

Death at the Dolphin, Ngaio Marsh 23 October 2017

1967 classic English detective fiction; twenty-fourth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Playwright and director Peregrine Jay is handed the dilapidated Dolphin Theatre, and is making a success of it, at least until the night-watchman is murdered. US vt Killer Dolphin.

This is an odd book: one can readily see the seams showing, as the Bitchy Theatre Story is added once again to the Detective Novel but Marsh doesn't stir quite enough and there are great big lumps of one or the other. Most obviously, the titular death doesn't happen until nearly half-way through, and most of what goes before is much more the theatrical clash of personalities than the setup for who's going to fill the roles of murderer and victim.

There's the Young Couple whom even Marsh is clearly starting to regard as a bit superfluous to the whole business, one of whom is the initial viewpoint character; otherwise Marsh manages to be reasonably original in her cast, rather than recycling from her earlier theatrical mysteries. (The Supporting Actress Scorned isn't as developed as one might have liked, but the Horrible Child Actor is particularly effective.)

Alas for the plot, there's a particular element of alibi which is so meticulously described, and with a loophole so blatantly unquestioned, that I immediately fastened on it as the obvious explanation, to the detriment of my enjoyment of the evidence and camouflage presented in the rest of the book.

A side element of the plot deals with what might be Hamnet Shakespeare's glove, rediscovered after many years, and consideration of whether it's going to leave the country as was threatened for the Goya Wellington; this may well have caught the mood of the times, but Marsh assumes it will catch the reader's mood and it comes over now as a bit of an alien thing to be worried about. (We now have plenty of horrible private collectors in Britain who'd lock the thing away and only show it to their friends.)

But at this point Marsh seems to be writing primarily to get the people written down; like many detective-story writers she's run out of changes to ring on a murder plot, and it tends to fade into the background or simply be a framework on which to hang sparkling conversation by interesting (if sometimes horrid) people. (And Marsh is just as dismissive of homosexuality as she was back in Death by Ecstasy; I keep reading suggestions that her representations of gay men are unusually progressive, but mostly that seems to consist of having them in the cast at all.)

Followed by Clutch of Constables.

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

Previous in series: Dead Water | Series: Roderick Alleyn | Next in series: Clutch of Constables

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