Welcome to Monday Murder Mystery where we gather each week to talk about mysteries. Discussion of all mysteries is welcome, not just those involving murder; and all genres of mysteries are welcome, be they the coziest of the cozy style or the most cold blooded of the police procedurals.
Diarists are invited to share any book, series, author or mystery genre. If you would like to contribute, please include your subject and date in the comments, or send a private message to Susan from 29.
Because it is hard to discuss a mystery without revealing the ending, please use the comment section for that discussion, with the word "Spoiler" prominent in the topic line. Those who don't want to know the ending can set their Comment Preference to SHRINK and individually expand those comments without the warning.
Winter in the English countryside, 1940. A house party at Highfold Manor in the hills of Dorset. Guests simmering with hostility, adultery, secrets, betrayals, lies, anonymous threats on scraps of paper, booby traps, mysterious assaults. And as tensions mount, those weapons on the walls of the smoking room... And a foot of snow falls. No one can leave.
Ngaio Marsh (that's DAME Ngaio Marsh to you) was one of the four grandes dames of the 20th century British murder mystery, along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Margery Allingham. Marsh wrote 32 murder mysteries between 1934 and 1982, some breathtakingly good. This is one of those.
On the afternoon of a Thursday early in 1940 Jonathan Royal sat in his library at Highfold Manor. Although daylight was almost gone, curtains were not yet drawn across the windows, and Jonathan Royal could see the ghosts of trees moving in agitation against torn clouds and a dim sequence of fading hills.
The Cast
Jonathan Royal describes himself as "an elderly fogey plagued with the desire to create." He's no good at painting or writing but he loves drama. He decides to stage a houseparty composed of people who are antagonistic to one another, and see what happens. He invites his friend --
Aubrey Mandrake, a successful playwright, hoping that Mandrake will decide to write up the results. Mandrake, the POV character with his own shameful secret, is horrified but stuck. He learns that the other guests will be:
Sandra Compline, a once beautiful woman, who tried plastic surgery on the Continent 20 years ago with disastrous results;
William Compline, her older son, a painter who adores her;
Nicholas Compline, her younger son, whom she adores, an extraordinarily handsome bounder ("He glittered a little");
Chloris Wynne, William's fiancee, who used to be engaged to Nicholas;
Lady Hersey Amblington, Jonathan's cousin, who's fallen on hard times and runs a beauty salon;
Elise Lisse, exotic foreign woman (Marsh does great femmes fatales) who runs a rival beauty salon that's stealing customers from Lady Hersey and who's been seen with Nicholas Compline. "Her dress was extremely simple, but in it her body seemed to be gloved rather than clothed";
Dr. Francis Hart, a German emigre and plastic surgeon, who has also been seen with Madame Lisse and who by the way may be the doctor who destroyed Sandra Compline's face all those years ago.
The Plot
The situation heats up fast and enjoyably. Dr. Hart Anglicized his name when he came to England, but he is the same guy who ruined Sandra's face. Of course they're seated next to one another at dinner: "Both were extremely pale, and, when they found their place cards, seemed to flinch all over." Oh, and it turns out that Hart and Madame Lisse are secretly married and he thinks she's been sleeping with Nicholas (she has). Nicholas starts openly putting the moves on Madame Lisse and Chloris, both of whom, to some extent, respond to his gorgeousness. There's an attack on Nicholas (the traditional brass Buddha balanced on top of his door); someone pushes Mandrake, who has a club foot, into the freezing swimming pool and he almost drowns, and (maybe) Nicholas gets a threatening note from (maybe) Hart. It starts to snow really hard. Cocktails are served in the library.
It all winds up with William clubbed to death from behind in the smoking room with a Maori weapon, a mere, that happened to be hanging on the wall. Was he killed by mistake for his brother? That provides a lot of motives. And yet Dr. Hart, obviously suspect number one, has an apparently watertight alibi courtesy of the new footman, Thomas, who happened to be dancing alone in the hall when he should have been bustling around with the cocktail tray.
As Susan from 29 says, in the first of this series, murder mysteries demand that you work. Marsh plays fair; you have all the information you need. She even headhops into the thoughts of all the suspects at one point. This one is definitely solvable even before Marsh's detective, Smartypants Roderick Alleyn, motors (with difficulty) into view and starts grilling everyone.
What sets Marsh apart in general are her sense of atmosphere and her terrific characterizations. Aubrey Mandrake (not his real name) is a languid, pretentious intellectual who is also an ardent, shy fumbler. Chloris Wynne is a bleached blonde bimbo who is also perceptive and funny. Dr. Hart is a childish, dishonest, heroic figure. In many of Marsh's books, the murder is almost a distraction; you want to hang out with the characters indefinitely.
What sets this particular Marsh book apart is the way in which she shows the fictional English murder mystery world -- a stand-in for English society itself -- slowly, inexorably, changing. The war has started although the Blitz has not yet begun; William and Nicholas are both home on leave (poor William; he could just as well have gotten killed in France) . Lady Hersey's rank didn't come with an income; she's working hard for her living. The guests don't just happen to be antagonistic; they were assembled for that purpose. Thomas, the footman, doesn't fit. As the butler says, "He's not cut out for service, sir...He's a nice open truthful lad, but not suitable. He'll do better in the army."
And on the second evening of the party, a few hours before the murder, a different world actually peeks in:
Darkness came with no abatement of the storm. A belated pilot of the Coastal Command, who had flown off his map, battled over Cloudyfold through a driving misery of snow and, for a fraction of time, passed through the smoke from Jonathan's chimneys. Peering down, he discerned the vague shapes of roofs and pictured the warmth and joviality of some cheerful weekend party. Just about cocktail time, he thought -- and was gone over the rim of Cloudyfold.
If you've never read Marsh, she's worth your time. Try this one, or Overture To Death, Death of A Peer (aka A Surfeit of Lampreys), Death In A White Tie, Artists In Crime, or Night At The Vulcan. If you're like me, you'll develop a mild dislike for Roderick Alleyn and a great affection for his creator.