1964 classic English detective fiction; twenty-third of Marsh's novels
of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. An island village gets rich off tourism
following the "miracle cure" that happened at its spring, but the new
owner of the island plans to shut all that down. Murder ensues.
Like many of Marsh's books I've read recently, this sits
awkwardly between its actual time and the 1930s. Mostly it's a 1930s
plot, but the flocking tourists and the plastic tat are a 1960s
addition glued onto the side.
The usual Marsh problems are here: yes, yes, the village idiot child
has petit mal epilepsy because those are things that always go
together; and being a single woman over forty is clearly its own sort
of mental illness.
"With some it takes the form of religious activities. Others go
all-out for dumb animals. Mrs. Nankivell herself, although a very
level-headed lady, worked it off in cats, which have in the course
of nature simmered down to two. Neuters, both."
And the reader is asked to assume that the new owner, a lady who
taught Alleyn French back in his Diplomatic Service days, is entirely
within her rights to want to shut down the only thing the village has
going for it, because it offends her (and clearly Marsh's) sense of
propriety. Alleyn likes her, so she must be a Good Thing.
"Isn't it extraordinary? She doesn't present any of the classic
features. She is not faded or pretty; nor, as far as I've noticed,
does she smell of lavender. She's by no means gentle or sweet, and
yet she doesn't exude salty common sense. She is, without a shadow
of doubt, a pigheaded, arrogant old thing.
As for the actual plot, it unfortunately recapitulates what appears to
have been one of Marsh's preferred patterns (she's used it at least
twice before); if one notices a few specific things, and they're
flagged reasonably well, then the mere absence of inquiry in a
particular direction is a dead giveaway that it'll be important later.
Even then, Marsh cheats, when Alleyn notices something while looking
down from the scene of the crime:
He was very still for a moment. Then he called to Fox, who joined
him.
"Do you see what I see?" he asked.
Fox placidly related what he saw.
I'm still not completely sure what that was, though I can make a guess.
All the people are either degenerate Mummerzet yokels or "proper"
vaguely-upper-class types (even if they're running the pub). There's
an action sequence near the end that feels frankly forced, as if Marsh
realised that nothing terribly exciting had happened and perhaps it
ought to. It's not that anything is particularly wrong here, but nor
does it ever manage to rise above the more-or-less all right.
Some of Alleyn's investigative technique is very well-observed, but
overall this is not a good introduction to Marsh, I think. Followed by
Death at the Dolphin.
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