Ngaio Marsh – Death at the Bar

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Book Review, Classic Crime Fiction, Crime Fiction, Death at the Bar, Golden-Age Crime Fiction, Inspector Alleyn Book 9, Ngaio Marsh

Murder In The Sticks

Ngaio Marsh’s 9th outing for Roderick Alleyn, Chief Detective Inspector of the C.I.D, originally published in 1939, sees him and the trusty Foxkin motoring down to deepest darkest Devon, called thither by an upper class rubicund shouty District Chief Constablle : Colonel The Honourable Maxwell Brammington. A murder (of course) has been committed and it has proved an effort too far for the local super – who also knows Alleyn, from yore – to solve

I must confess I enjoyed this a little less than most of my previous romps with Alleyn and his coterie. This might have been partly because, this time, the great man is only accompanied by Fox. The other regulars from his team are lacking, as is Nigel Bathgate, his sometimes a little foolish Watsonish foil, who can always be relied on to excitedly draw the wrong conclusions for the solving of the puzzle, and allow the witty, urbane and ferociously intelligent Alleyn to have some fun (with Fox) when true revelation is laid out before the reader. It might also be that on this one, I was a little more aware of the challenges offered by the prejudices of the times – primarily, class, and an automatic superiority of upper class Toryism, and the foolishness, not to mention, the somewhat distastefulness of those uppity working classes who get above themselves with a belief in socialism.

So…….to the fiendish and clever murder which Alleyn will solve, not to mention our cast of suspects, murderer and victim, already on the scene before the crime haps, and our trusty Alleyn and Fox arrive to shed light on darkness – it is thus (no spoilers)

Nothing whatsoever to do with Ngaio Marsh, but this 1949 Kitty Wells song has the same title, and the player looks suitably vintage

A group of impeccable uppercrusts, a KC, his cousin, a highly admired and well known actor, and their mutual friend, ditto hightly admired etc landscape and portrait painter always go away for a few days holiday, painting, walking, chatting et al to an absolutely out of the way Devonian hamlet. They stay in a particular hostelry, the landlord is a suitably forelock tugging, dialect speaking, rustic and loyal working class salt-of-the-earth Tory, However, being 1939, a well established ‘Left Movement’ has also been gaining sway. The landlord’s son is a member, it even employs a treasurer and secretary, has quite a few members, funds etc. There are no tugged forelocks and the members of the society who are regulars at the pub just might not take kindly to knowing their places. Also on the scene is a local femme fatale, so we might have several reasons for emotions to run high. Completing the cast are a couple of easy comedy types : a local Devonian oo-ar lush, complete with funny dialect, and a holidaying and eccentric Irishwoman, an impeccable Hon, but comedy turn Oirish, to be sure, to be sure, also. Local rustics of regions cue for comedy turns and slightly superior laughter.

The crime and its fiendish solving is ingenious as ever, but I missed the various developing relationships between Alleyn and his fellow professionals, and the incursion of Alleyn’s private life, and how his professional and private worlds relate to each other. There is a very enjoyable sequence where the good and warm friendship between Alleyn and Fox, and the understated respect and love they have for each other, is shown, but I did feel (perhaps wrongly) that this particular one was much more Marsh-by-numbers, written from the surface of her work, rather than inside her lovely creations. 4 stars, still, enjoyable, but not as MUCH as normal

Death at the Bar Amazon UK
Death at the Bar Amazon USA

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Ngaio Marsh – Overture to Death

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Book Review, Crime Fiction, Golden-Age Crime Fiction, Inspector Alleyn Book 8, Ngaio Marsh, Overture to Death

Theatrical Am-Drams, and a darkening mood in Marsh

As I continue on my sequential journey through ‘The Empress’ of the Golden Age of Crime, it is not surprising that with this one, published in 1939, a began to feel a darker and more sombre tone developing. Marsh’s own craft in writing is appreciable growing and, in this one, not only are characters becoming more layered, and more psychologically interesting, but there is also an occasional ‘stream of consciousness’, from inside the minds of some of the major characters – including those under suspicion

The longings of two friend-and-rival spinsters of the parish, female jealousy in general, not to mention the destructive talents of a femme fatale in a small community are brilliantly laid out in this. Yes, Marsh retains her usual style and her usual wit and light touch, but there is also pathos. This does not just come from Alleyn and his team, who are all refreshingly well-functioning individuals, but it also comes from some of those who may not like some of the other characters within the community (for good reason) but do come to appreciate the depth of suffering the unlikeable ones might be experiencing: they might be a little more than just figures of fun, mockery and irritation

Rachmaninov’s Prelude plays an important role in the story……..

The generally upper middle class denizens of a small community are engaged in some pleasurably entertaining ‘good works’ – am-drams to raise money for a cause close to their own hearts – a better piano in the village hall. Into the mix and another (of course) ingenious murder are thrown the spinsters, the object of their affections (the local high Anglican cleric) an affair which might damage the social standing of someone otherwise respected in the community, a pair of star crossed (or at least, minorly class crossed lovers) and the added complication that the local police surgeon and the local acting chief constable are not only witnesses but might themselves have motive for murder.

A solo piano version of Ethelbert Nevin’s Venetian Suite is also much discussed

All the usual and expected formulas are in place, so murder ingeniously managed and the eventual ‘re-staging of the scene of the crime’ which will flush out the murder for the benefit of the reader and the innocent others, are present. Alleyn and his brothers in the Yard had already solved the case, but just are waiting to precipitate denouement/confession/evidence. Blessed Bathgate, of course, is as slow on the uptake (or, possibly, even slower) than Marsh’s devoted readers

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Ngaio Marsh – Death in A White Tie

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Book Review, Crime Fiction, Death in a White Tie, Golden-Age Crime Fiction, Inspector Alleyn Book 7, Ngaio Marsh

Duchesses, Dignitaries and Debutantes Dance with Death

No less a ‘hard boiled’ crime writer than Dashiell Hammett called Marsh’s 7th Alleyn outing, Death in A White Tie ‘the best detective story I have ever read’ And it is indeed magnificent, though Marsh is a very different kind of crime writer than the gritty Americans of the same period.

Published in 1938, and impeccably set in the upper-class world of debutantes coming out for the season, Alleyn gets swept into this particular investigation in part through his mother, who is chaperoning his niece and her ‘bestie’ into their first season. And coincidentally Alleyn is already beginning to hone his intellect and his team into an investigation of the society set, as it appears a blackmailer is moving amongst them. Our hero has to tread carefully, using his society credentials without alarming those who are running the racket.

Things get much darker and much nastier though, when a murder which touches Alleyn personally turns the desire to find the killer into far more than a dispassionate solving of a crime. Grief and anger, not to mention a sense of personal responsibility are in this mix.

Glorious!! Benedict Cumberbatch uploaded to You Tube in a 7 part Audible read of this. Perfect delivery! Perfect! I am rarely entranced by voiceovers of books but, this..!

Further complications, making this more than just the routine solving of a crime are also on the agenda. Alleyn has some unresolved business to sort out with the well-respected artist Agatha Troy, who was involved for a while as a potential suspect in the previous outing, ‘Artists in Crime’ She is certainly guilty of capturing Alleyn’s heart, although being a suspect in a murder investigation does not necessarily make the best way for a far from faint heart to win a fair lady.

Alleyn (as ever) is a very human, very real person, getting more and more three dimensional as the series progresses

Death in a White Tie Amazon UK
Death in a White Tie Amazon USA

Ngaio Marsh – Artists in Crime

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Artists in Crime, Book Review, Crime Fiction, Golden-Age Crime Fiction, Inspector Alleyn Book 6, Ngaio Marsh

Love, Art and Murder

Travelling back from New Zealand, where he has been recuperating after an operation (and solving a theatrical crime) Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn meets a rather remarkable woman on board the ship. Agatha Troy, known to all as Troy, is a well-respected artist. She is completely uninterested in flirtatious, simpering feminine wiles, full of subterfuge, but is direct, driven, and motivated to excellence in her work. Some kind of almost unwelcome frisson occurs between Alleyn and Troy. Each is a little suspicious of their own feelings, and sure only of the indifference felt by the other.

Some time later, matters murderous happen in an artist’s retreat and painting school which Troy is running, for a group of strongly egotistic, often highly competitive and unconventional artists. Chance dictates that Troy’s studio is only a few miles away from the Alleyn family home and that Alleyn is visiting his adored and wonderful mother, Lady Alleyn. Location means that the local force are more than happy to draft in the famous, brilliant investigator to solve a case beyond their normal abilities. Alleyn, along with his trusty familiar crew, Inspector Fox, Bailey-the-fingerprints, Thompson-the-photographics are also joined by the journalist with an ear to the ground about exploits Alleyn – Nigel Bathgate, happily married to Angela North from Book 1 of the series, who is about to give birth.

Still Life by Marsh

The solving of yet another ingenious and horrid crime is of course the thrust of the book, but, as always, there are other delights along the way. Not least of which is getting to know more about Alleyn’s family background. He must be a particularly unusual detective in a series, – certainly unlike most detectives in more modern series – as not only is he neither a drug or drink abusing maverick with tendency to serial bed-hopping who comes from a dysfunctional family, but he has, instead, a particularly warm relationship with his lovely, intelligent, well liked, charming mother. Mother and son clearly love, like, respect and appreciate each other, with good reasons for doing so, on both sides. Lady Alleyn, like her son, is a thoroughly good egg, with spirit, wit and individuality. She is also keenly and intelligently interested in her son’s profession. And would dearly like him to find the kind of exceptional woman who would be a fine and fitting match for him.

Unfortunately, matters of the heart are bound to be a little difficult when Alleyn is bound to consider Troy as one of the potential suspects in the artists’ murder mystery. She is someone who appears to have both motive and opportunity, as of course do the usual gathering of others in this painterly version of the classic country house murder.

This is book 6 of the series, and as enjoyable as the previous 5

Artists in Crime Amazon UK
Artists in Crime Amazon USA

Ngaio Marsh – A Man Lay Dead; Enter A Murderer; The Nursing Home Murder

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A Man Lay Dead, Book Review, Enter A Murderer, Golden-Age Crime Fiction, Inspector Alleyn, New Zealand author, Ngaio Marsh, The Nursing Home Murder

Golden Age Wit, Golden Age Murder, in different variations of closed, ‘ Country House’

Ngaio Marsh is the only Golden Age Crime Fiction author I genuinely adore. I have read her books intermittently, when lucky enough to find her in my local library, but she seems to have vanished from their shelves, pretty much, as these are now devoted to more lurid, modern crime fiction, and no longer seem to stock much ‘cosy’.

I don’t know whether it is because she begins writing a little later than Christie, Sayers or Allingham – mid 30s, rather than 20s, or because she came from outside the UK and outside the upper or upper middle class echelons which the other three came from, but I find her writing is less filled with some of the disturbing attitudes towards race and class which was certainly prevalent in the interwar years.

Marsh’s background was not particularly privileged – her father was a bank clerk. Her first passion was art and theatre, and she initially came to the UK in the late 20s from New Zealand, setting up an interior design shop. The first of her Inspector Alleyn books was published in 1934, though she had written it prior to her return to New Zealand in 1932. Beginning to write as the Depression takes hold, coming from another country, coming from a more ‘rogues and vagabonds’ outsider culture, perhaps all made for a slightly less jaundiced view of ‘people not like us’

Whatever the reason, although certainly her detective is crisp and aquiline, cool and educated, impeccably well-read and all the rest, he seems to be more at home in a wider social class, and is rather more of a team player, less the solitary, eccentric, maverick. He is also, to my mind, deliciously funny in a self-deprecating way. Part of the joy of Alleyn is that he doesn’t work alone. Relationships develop, both professional and personal, whether between him and those in his team – especially Inspector Fox (affectionately called Brer Fox by Alleyn) but also he inspires affection in his ‘plods’ and he trusts them, too – or, others whom he has friendships with, and who undertake, at times, investigations on his behalf.

I have begun to track down the books, in sequence and, true to form, downloading the first three – the 1934 A Man Lay Dead, and her two 1935 books, Enter A Murderer, and The Nursing Home Murder, I could not resist starting and finishing this at a running read, as the developing characters were a delight

Marsh’s first book is classically A Country House Murder. A young journalist, Nigel Bathgate, 25, is setting off with his older cousin, sophisticated, womanising Charles Rankin, to his first ever aristocratic country house party, at Frantock, Sir Hubert Handesley’s welcoming home. Handesley is cultured, good fun, and a renowned host. His gatherings are the last word in to die for. But, as the title suggests, death will be literal, not merely a figure of speech. Handesley’s gatherings always iinvolve games, and one of the most popular is ‘Murder’, where one of the guests will be designated the murderer, and once the pretend deed is done, everyone tries to discover who the murderer is.

Except, in this case, it really happens, and there are several possible culprits, and almost everyone has a motive. Sexual, monetary, not to mention political – a background of a secretive Russian society, and a mysterious vendetta, possibly involving a betrayal or two. Greed, sex, sexual betrayal, power.

Enter Marsh’s Detective – the wonderfully light touch, un-plodding, Roderick Alleyn. Alleyn can inspire a kind of adulation in those younger and older. Although his work brings him, of course, in touch with villains, and he has to suspect everyone, he seems to genuinely also like humanity. If he has a fault, it might be that he often warms as much to the perpetrators, in the likeable qualities they have, as well as he might warm to those without a murderous secret to hide.

Alleyn is both a sharp mind, and an ‘following an instinct’ detective – although he inclines most to the rational, and is wary of his instinct.

He also (hurrah!) likes women a lot – as people, and is particularly keen on intelligent, bright, forthright young women – and not as sexual fodder. Alleyn, when we meet him first, is a bachelor, without love interest on the horizon, and, in this book will form a working friendship with a man and a woman who will appear again in other books in the series

At his first appearance he was a bachelor and, although responsive to the opposite sex, did not bounce in and out of irresponsible beds when going about his job. Or if he did, I knew nothing about it. He was, to all intents and purposes, fancy-free and would remain so until, sailing out of Suva in Fiji……And that was still some half-dozen books in the future”

Marsh, in the introduction to this trilogy

The structure of the book (and indeed, the first 3) falls into 3 parts – the set up and dramatis personae at the ‘House Party’. Part 2, Enter the Detective, and the questioning and sifting of evidence. Part 3 – the reconstruction – very like the third act of a play, Alleyn nails the perpetrator by running the reconstruction, with a twist.

The second book Enter A Murderer, published in 1935, takes place in another kind of ‘closed society’ – in this case, it is theatrical, Marsh’s own roots. The setting is a West End production of a murder mystery play. Alleyn, together with the journalist Nigel Bathgate are in the audience of this hot theatrical hit. The lead actor is a chum from Bathgate’s University days. In front of the audience, in the middle of a highly dramatic scene where murder is being dramatised on stage, a real murder happens. Cue a wonderfully campy theatrical feast. The actors consummately act their ‘types’ in real life, as much as they do on stage :

Arthur Surbonadier called on Miss Stephanie Vaughan…and asked her to marry him. It was not the first time he had done so. Miss Vaughan felt herself called upon to use all her professional and personal savoir-faire. The scene needed some handling and she gave it her full attention.

‘Darling’ she said, taking her time over lighting a cigarette and quite unconsciously adopting the best of her six-by-the-mantelpiece poses

Its not just the lovely wit of Marsh, especially exemplified by Alleyn, the plotting is fiendish and fun, the genre itself is affectionately poked fun at by those investigating and those being investigated, the solution satisfying – and Alleyn himself also has compassion for those caught up in the events.

Book 3, The Nursing Home Murder also features Bathgate and Angela North his fiancée, whom we met in an earlier book. Bathgate, and Alleyn’s slightly strange almost hero worship father/son relationship is a real delight, as is Alleyn’s friendship with sharply intelligent Miss North. This book also returns to the political world of Book 1 – Russia, and a revolutionary society working towards the Proletariat Dawn, are set against draconian measures going through Parliament. The Home Secretary, Sir Derek O’ Callaghan, a man with some secrets to hide, is pushing a bill through the House. He has received several death threats. He is also very unwell and in a pretty lifeless marriage.

O Callaghan is rushed to hospital seriously ill, having delayed taking action on his health until he collapses. This is of course, well before the foundation of the NHS. O Callaghan does not survive his emergency operation. It becomes a distinct possibility that the death was not the result of leaving things too late before seeking medical intervention, and more likely that someone within another closed little world – the private hospital itself – might have hastened the shuffling off of his mortal coil. There are those with personal motivations – the usual; sex, money, revenge and there are also those who might have political and ideological motivations. Some of the thinking around ideologies being debated in the mid-30s make their way into this.

I thoroughly enjoyed my immersion into the first 3 of the Alleyn mysteries, and look forward to further progression in due course

I got this on Kindle download. It’s not a completely seamless, and error free digitisation.  There are some annoying paragraph and line hiccups, but no missing text. The price of the succeeding volumes rise quite sharply – there are 33 Alleyn books, published in 11 sets of 3 – and I have noted reviewers continue to mention some formatting problems. I’m intending on tracking down marketplace sellers and second hand, for the most part!

This collection also included an earlier short story by Marsh, not at all in the detective genre. As it involves a little girl in her bedroom on Christmas Eve I was really pleased when she heard footsteps outside the door that there was no need for a detective! It was a sweet and touching story.

Marsh’s books were turned into a BBC series with Patrick Malahide as Alleyn. It is one I will not be watching – not because i have any objection to Malahide;  it is more, that, searching for a sneak You Tube of a couple of the titles here, I find the adaptation has played fairly fast and loose with her books, transposing the third book to after the second world war, instead of between the wars – a quite different dynamic, and introducing what is hinted at in Marsh’s introduction, as occurring ‘some half-dozen books in the future’ into the first episode, thereby also eliminating a favourite character of mine, who ought to take a professionally assisting task, and demonstrate that Alleyn can form friendships with attractive young women without irresponsibly bouncing! I think Marsh might have turned me into a purist, on behalf of her engaging books!

Ngaio Marsh Collection 1 Amazon UK
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Anthony Berkeley – The Poisoned Chocolates Case

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Anthony Berkeley, Book Review, British Library Crime Classics, Classic Crime Fiction, Crime Fiction, Golden-Age Crime Fiction, Martin Edwards, The Poisoned Chocolates Case

Beware of the man bearing chocolates, no matter how tempting and soft-centred they seem…..

I was nudged forcefully towards this by a fellow blogger, Karen from Kaggsy’sBookish Ramblings, and surrendered without too much resistance. A book about chocolates! Even if they were advertised as being poisonous. I gently nibbled at chocolates I had bought myself, randomly plucked from hither and thither on the frequently re-stocked shelves of my favourite chocolatiers, as I settled into this delicious Golden Age Crime, with updates

The Poisoned Chocolates Case is part of the British Library Crime Classics series, edited by Martin Edwards – who provides a delectable coda to the case (more later)

Anthony Berkeley – one of the pen names of Anthony Berkeley Cox – wrote a series of books with his central character Roger Sheringham, a classic ‘amateur detective’. In real life Berkeley, a journalist as well as detective story writer, was one of the founder members of the Detection Club, along with several major crime writers of the interwar years, including Agatha Christie.

Berkeley plays with that idea in Poisoned Chocolates, and, in fact, predates it as Roger Sheringham is the founder member of the Crimes Circle club, a select group of 6 with an interest in criminology who meet together to discuss crimes and crime writing

A Murder has been committed by Chocolate. Sir Eustace Pennefather, unpleasant, irascible lecher and seducer, is sent a box of chocolates by one of the major confectionery firms catering to the sophisticated and wealthy. The confectioners are asking for his patronage, wanting him to ‘test and review’ a new range. Pennefather is clearly no chocolate aficionado as the solicitation infuriates him and he is on the verge of binning the box. (Question: why has no purveyor of only the very best, dark chocolates not contacted me to ask if I would like a steady supply of Advance Review chocolates??) By chance, another member of Pennefather’s club is present when the chocolates arrive. Graham Bendix had lost a bet he had made with his wife Joan, on the solution of a murder mystery play. Joan had guessed correctly and Bendix’s forfeit is a box of chocolates. Sir Eustace gives Bendix the box, and Bendix takes them home to Joan. Unfortunately, the chocolates which were intended for Sir Eustace were poisoned. Greedy Joan eats several, despite the fact that they taste a bit odd,  and painfully dies.

Joan Bendix was not so serious-minded as not to have a healthy interest in good chocolates

As is almost always the case in these Golden Age cosies, the police are stumped. Chief Inspector Moresby comes, vaguely helmet in hand, to Roger Sheringham. The Crimes Circle, wonderfully delineated, one and all,  decide to solve the murder. Each of them, on successive nights, will present their conclusions to the rest of the club, who will assess the solution for its possible integrity.

Mrs Fielder-Fleming, a short, round, homely-looking woman who wrote surprisingly improper and most successful plays and looked exactly like a rather superior cook on her Sunday out…….Mr Ambrose Chitterwick blinked his mild blue eyes and assumed the appearance of an intelligent nanny-goat

This offers a marvellous selection of 6 possible solutions, with each member coming up with different motives, different suspects, different important clues and methods of investigation and analysis. Much fun is had, and this might almost be a kind of workshop for aspiring crime writers, except that Berkeley has great fun in playing with the various tropes of the genre, creating some fabulous characters, and writing with verve and dry humour.

You don’t want to sell anything?” asked the maiden suspiciously. Impregnated with all that is best in the go-ahead spirit of English business methods, she naturally looked with the deepest distrust on anybody who might possibly wish to do such an unbusinesslike thing as sell her firm something

It is also a reflection of quite an insular upper class society, where everyone knows everyone – they all go to the same plays, hotels, dinners, restaurants,  use the same ‘purveyors of fine whatever’ as each other.

I ‘m definitely going to investigate more by Berkeley, his writing is sophisticated and playful, and each individual voice was well-delineated. It was good fun to have each plausible sounding conclusion roundly debunked by rival members of the circle pressing their own better solution. Of course, the reader very quickly gets themselves in on the joke as they can’t help but try to solve the mystery themselves. The book ends with a rather pleasing question mark, which has allowed for a further ‘solution’ A later crime writer from the seventies Christianna Brand had provided another interpretation for an American reprint. To be honest, I found Brand’s ‘solution’ heavy-handed and lacking in the light-touch sophisticated sly wit of Berkeley’s six stories. And the particular ‘voice’ she chose to take further, one of Berkeley’s characters, did not even sound remotely like the character he had created,

Fortunately, Martin Edwards, editor of the whole series was invited by the publisher to provide an additional solution of his own. And, Bravo, Mr Edwards, not only does he provide yet another wonderful trope of the genre, but he holds Berkeley’s writing voice excellently, and each of the characters whom we have already met continue with the voices and style Berkeley created for each of them. Edward’s tale is like the cherry on the perfectly made, perfectly iced cake, or the star on top of a beautifully decorated Christmas tree. An Olé! moment, for sure. I felt like clapping.

A most enjoyable read for the festive season, a real divertissement. Perfact accompaniment……..a plate of lightly steamed spiniach…(look, this is a crime book review, so its not going to be the most obvious suspect, now, is it?? Pay attention!

The Poisoned Chocolates Case Amazon UK
The Poisoned Chocolates Case Amazon USA

Anthony Horowitz – Magpie Murders

Tags

Anthony Horowitz, Book Review, Classic Crime Fiction, Crime Fiction, Golden-Age Crime Fiction, Magpie Murders

5 stars for Atticus Pünd and another 5 stars for his careful editor Susan Ryeland

Susan Ryeland is a literary editor for Cloverleaf Books, a small, independent publisher whose success is primarily dependent on one man, ‘Golden-Age’ crime writer Alan Conway. Well, to be properly precise, Golden-Age-Crime-Genre writer, as Conway, like the rest of us, lives in modern times. Conway, of course, is the author of the hugely successful Atticus Pünd series of detective novels, and the series is an homage to Agatha Christie, amongst others, in many ways. A BBC TV series is pending, and the latest book in the series, Magpie Murders, is enticingly waiting for Ryeland’s editing work to start.

Ms Ryeland introduces herself, and then the first half of the book which you might be considering reading is Conway’s manuscript, as submitted to Cloverleaf Books. It’s helpful to keep that in mind, as you peruse, as the book entitled Magpie Murders, by the author Anthony Horowitz, also has much involvement from Susan!

Sometimes, authors play tricks games and deceptions on their readers, and we resent untoward, unsubtle manipulations, and sometimes – as here – the more we are tricked, distracted, deceived and toyed with, the more we love it, gasping at authorial audacity, crowing with delight as rug after rug is whipped from under us, and as every clue we cry ‘AHA!!! ‘about turns out to be a herring of reddish hue, we want to applaud the author for his cleverness and our own naïveté

This is a most delicious romp. I can’t really say more, because I think the less the reader knows about the journey Horowitz will take them on, the more they may enjoy it. He is a consummate craftsman of the genre, and it was a complete delight to surrender to his writerly skills

All I would say, is that the decision to allow to Susan introduce herself first is an extremely good one, stylistically. It prevents the sort of sudden tricksy surprises an author might spring which leave the reader feeling cheated – information which should have been revealed, withheld by authorial contrivance, only. And what it also does is create an interesting double perspective right at the start, and reads one way, with another reading possibility lurking whisperingly in the mind.

I enjoyed this so much that I could hardly bear to put the book down, and was also MAKING myself only read in short bursts, as I really wanted to prolong the pleasure for as long as possible.

If you are an aficionado of Golden-Age Crime writing, particularly Christie, I expect you will enjoy it even more, due to the little synchronicities which you will recognise. But, fear not, because if these pass you by, because you aren’t familiar enough, (they did me!) Ms Ryeland is remarkably helpful so that the innocent can still appreciate the jokes!

There is also some no doubt helpful advice, for those plotting their own detective novels, from Ryeland’s years of appreciation of the genre, and the editorial skills she brings to bear on her work, when reading submissions from prospective authors:

If there is one thing that unites all the detectives I’ve ever read about, it’s their inherent loneliness. The suspects know each other. They may well be family or friends. But the detective is always the outsider. He asks necessary questions but he doesn’t actually form a relationship with anyone. He doesn’t trust them, and they in turn are afraid of him. It’s a relationship based entirely on deception and it’s one that ultimately, goes nowhere.

I received this, as an ARC, from the publisher via NetGalley. And have to say, to my huge joy, given the subject matter, there were quite a lot of formatting and typo mistakes. Not having seen the ‘out on the shelves’ version, I can’t say whether these are deliberate or not, but they did add to the fun for me, rather than irritate!

Let me leave the last word to the erudite, literary Ryeland:

I’m not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us. Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we enjoy it

And the designer of that delectable cover should be commended, something Kindlers miss

The final word will be mine, after all: those amongst us who are a little squeamish about dripping-with-gore-crime-fiction, rest assured that though there are a couple of quick arresting images which might cause those who are easy visualisers to become a bit squeamy for a moment, this is not lovingly dwelled on – we are, after all, in Golden-Age territory before serial slashers and their ilk began predictably stalking the pages of crime fiction, casually dismembering women (particularly beautiful ones)

Magpie Murders Amazon UK
Magpie Murders Amazon USA