When in Rome

Roderick Alleyn #26

by Ngaio Marsh

In 1968 Ngaio Marsh took her own Roman holiday (in part to research Italian police procedures) and the change seems to have done her good: Both her British and U.S. agents believed When in Rome to be the finest novel in her “Inspector Alleyn” series. As is so often (and so satisfyingly) the case, the tale concerns a murder within a closed group – in this case, a group of tourists visiting what Marsh calls the “Basilica di San Tommaso,” who find themselves fumbling into a complex web of blackmail and drug-smuggling. Adding some irresistible color are depictions of both La Dolce Vita (of which Marsh took a jaundiced view) and the student radicals of the day, whom she seems to have found somewhat more persuasive. All in all, a brilliant example of classic Golden Age plotting melded with a decidedly Space Age cast.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Audiobook, Italy, Detective, British Literature

263 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Dame Ngaio Marsh, born Edith Ngaio Marsh, was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. There is some uncertainty over her birth date as her father neglected to register her birth until 1900, but she was born in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand.

Of all the "Great Ladies" of the English mystery's golden age, including Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh alone survived to publish in the 1980s. Over a fifty-year span, from 1932 to 1982, Marsh wrote thirty-two classic English detective novels, which gained international acclaim. She did not always see herself as a writer, but first planned a career as a painter.

Marsh's first novel, A MAN LAY DEAD (1934), which she wrote in London in 1931-32, introduced the detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn: a combination of Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey and a realistically depicted police official at work. Throughout the 1930s Marsh painted occasionally, wrote plays for local repertory societies in New Zealand, and published detective novels. In 1937 Marsh went to England for a period. Before going back to her home country, she spent six months travelling about Europe.

All her novels feature British CID detective Roderick Alleyn. Several novels feature Marsh's other loves, the theatre and painting. A number are set around theatrical productions (Enter a Murderer, Vintage Murder, Overture to Death, Opening Night, Death at the Dolphin, and Light Thickens), and two others are about actors off stage (Final Curtain and False Scent). Her short story "'I Can Find My Way Out" is also set around a theatrical production and is the earlier "Jupiter case" referred to in Opening Night. Alleyn marries a painter, Agatha Troy, whom he meets during an investigation (Artists in Crime), and who features in several later novels.

Series:
* Roderick Alleyn

Reviews

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 1 out of 5]

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

You know what they don’t do in Rome? Bore their tourists silly. Sadly, that’s what this 26th entry in the series featuring Detective Superintendent Roderick Alleyn does. I have loved nearly all of the more than a dozen books I’ve read in this series; even The Nursing Home Murder and Death and the Dancing Footman at least rated two stars. And I finished them.

Not so here. Nothing much happens in When in Rome until the odious Sebastian Mailer disappears at the one-third mark. The blurb on the book reveals that he’s connected to the drug trade, so that’s no spoiler. At the halfway point, I had fallen asleep so many times while trying to read this book that I suddenly remembered something: Life’s too short to read lousy books. Definitely not recommended; instead, read one of Marsh’s excellent cozies.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This, 26th Roderick Alleyn mystery, was published in 1970. It involves Alleyn going undercover in Rome, taking part in an assorted tour group, run by Sebastian Mailer.

Mr Mailer is an extremely unpleasant man, as are, to be honest, the majority of the tourists. However, as in many such crime books, there is a lot more going on beneath the surface than first appears. This novel deals with drugs, blackmail and various secrets which all of those involved are hiding.

Overall, this has an interesting setting, but I was a little under-whelmed by the ending. However, I was enthused to have Fox - on telephone, rather than in person, admittedly - use the word 'groovy'!

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This counts as the 29th Alleyn book I have read out of the 33 total ?{I think}. I really enjoyed most of them, but there were several I did not care for at all. This was from 1970 and includes banter and sayings or expressions that I would think belonged in the 20's. "Negresses"? Oh well.
Yeah, not my favorite book but I own it. Amazon owns Goodreads and thus owns my reading list and sends me emails selling a book at a one-day special price consisting of those I have not yet read. Do I no longer have freedom of choice? Hmm. Maybe they really do not have an algorithm that behaves in that way.
This book gives you some of Rome, a gathering of weirdos on holiday, a manipulative blackmailing crook and then we have Alleyn joining the tourist group hiding his identity. The Church of San Clemente in Rome was used as a model by Marsh as the setting for murder in what she called "San Tommaso in Pallaria in this book. I believe the word Etruscan is mentioned 21 times in the book. If you know Rome and like playing guessing games you may enjoy the book more than I did.
Alleyn's wife does not appear in this book but for letter he writes to her. I like the books that have them both present far more.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Inspector Alleyn works with Interpol to catch an international drug ring in this charmingly dated mystery.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last read 13th November 2013 - Beautiful writing - it conveyed most powerfully the sense of Rome...but let down somewhat by it's dated air. Set in the 1960s, use of words like 'groovy' and 'turn on' (for drugs) made me flinch a bit - especially when the 1930s set books seem timeless, somehow. The usual suspects, homophobia, snobbery and xenophobia rear their ugly little heads - you read Ngaio Marsh despite these, not because of them, though they are instructive in their way of a world-view that seems so ludicrous as to be near extinction.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having traveled to Roma last year, this book brought back lovely memories of a city that exists both in the past and the present. I even visited the site of the murder, a beautiful church which has existed for centuries, and was a prime example of different historical periods in one of the world's oldest cities.
In terms of the book itself, our erstwhile hero, Detective Alleyn, has traveled undercover to Rome on the heels of a drug smuggler. But things quickly go sideways, and Alleyn must work with the local police to solve the many crimes that occur. Its the usual cast of characters, including young lovers, but an interesting turn and a new setting. I did miss the charming interplay between Alleyn and Fox, but otherwise, it was a mystery I would recommend.

[Kathy Davie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twenty-sixth in the Inspector Roderick Alleyn vintage mystery series revolving around a Scotland Yard detective who's visiting Rome circa 1970 when it was originally published. The focus is on an undercover operation between foreign law enforcement.

My Take
At first, I was bummed that we weren't in England, but I was quickly absorbed in the tour Mailer took everyone on. I do adore history, and the thought of all those centuries of life in one city . . . sigh . . .

Can you imagine a church buried for fifteen hundred years!?

It's mostly Alleyn on his own with a brief mention of Fox — another bummer, although It's definitely third person global subjective point-of-view as we get perspectives from a number of characters.

Ostensibly, the story is about a drug cartel, but it's really about a blackmailer, all the ways he gathers up his proofs, and how he's brought down. How so many of them are brought down. Oh well.

It's all those little "mistakes" that tip Alleyn off. Thank goodness Marsh recaps 'em, as I never noticed them. Oy.

The baron and baroness are like twins in thought and energy. Alleyn discovers even more reason for their twinishness. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. and it's emotionally confusing.

The other characters on the tour appear as extremes of their roles. Poor Grant is so miserable when he should be feeling quite proud of himself. The excessive enthusiasm of the baron and baroness is exhausting. As for Lady B and her nephew . . . Such caricatures they are along with the inflated drug encounters.

The Story
It's an exclusive tour group assembled in Rome that turns out to be even more exclusive than Alleyn could have expected.

The Characters
Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn is with CID at Scotland Yard. Agatha Troy Alleyn is his wife and a famous painter. Sir George Alleyn, a baron and Rory's older brother, is an ambassador for England. Alleyn's team in London includes Inspector Fox.

Law enforcement in Rome
Il Questore Valdarno (appears to be the equivalent of a chief constable) is teaming up with Scotland Yard and Interpol. Il Vice-Questore Bergarmi; Alleyn thinks he's the equivalent of a detective inspector. Agenti di Questura are police agents, similar to English constables. The Squadra Omicidi, a.k.a. Homicide Squad, is called out.

Members of the tour
Barnaby Grant is a writer; Sophy's firm had just published his bestselling Simon in Latium . Seems there's a bit of scandal still following Grant around.

Sebastian "Seb" Mailer claims he's an old Roman hand who's written a book, Angelo in August — and has an addiction to cocaine. He owns Il Cicerone that provides "enhanced" tours for those who pass his criteria. Signors Pacer and Giovanni Vecchi are employees. The violent, angry Violetta sells postcards.

Gerrit and Mathilde, the oversized Baron and Baroness Van der Veghel who must be of Etruscan descent (and she does descend from the distaff side of the Wittelsbachs), are also in publishing with Gerrit as editor for foreign productions at Adriaan and Welker, a religious publishing firm. They are obsessed with photography on their vacation.

Sophy Jason meant to visit her friend at the Pensione Gallico in Rome. She's working for a publishing firm, Koster Press, in London and is a children's author. Her grandpapa, Jason, was a Quaker and a banker.

Sonia, Lady Braceley, is one of a number of siblings of a beer-baron who grew up to be disasters. Sonia has a "certain reputation" for "experiencing everything but poverty". She's also Kenneth's aunt. Kenneth Dorne is something of a twit and a drug addict. Franky and Kenneth broke up. His father, Lord Dorne, had to be, ahem, put away.

Major Hamilton Sweet, a caricature of an Indian army officer and former gunner, is anti-religion.

Father Denys is the Irish Dominican monk in charge of San Tomasso, a basilica, and closes it up at night. Brother Dominic, the sacristan, opens it in the morning.

Marco is a maître d'hôtel at La Giaconda, an exclusive and expensive restaurant. Alfredo is Marco's secretary. Toni has a party pad where there'll be a performance of "Keenky Keeks", a.k.a. "Kinky Kicks". Otto Ziegfeldt retired to a phony castle in Lebanon. "Feather-fingers" appears to be a pickpocket. Silas J Sebastian claimed to be with an American magazine.

The Cover and Title
The cover has a cafe au lait background with the expected gradation from darker on the top and sides to lighter in the center and bottom of the top half. The title is centered in a gradated white to brown. The angled banner is a brownish pink with the author's name in its art deco font and dark brown solids and lines surrounded by a white glow. In the bottom third, the graphic is framed by angled rays of dark brown to lighter separated by scalloped white lines. The central graphic is the Colosseum against a blue sky. Below that is a brownish pink arch serving as background for the white of the series info.

I do wonder if the title is meant to be part of that old proverb, When in Rome, that one should follow the culture and customs of the place you're visiting. But it's only in the touristy bit that it worked for me.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 3.5. Minus Troy, Alleyn is in Rome tracking down key players in a drug ring. He becomes involved in the investigation of a murder and a missing blackmailer. Lots of suspects with Major Sweet, the Dutch couple, Kenneth and his wealthy Aunt and Grant an author. The decadent Sonia, Lady Braceley and her nephew the Hon. Kenneth Dorne are depicted with distaste.

The setting is in at the Basilica of San Tommaso in Pallaria. Great characterizations and an atmospheric setting that captures the sights and sounds f Rome. Some of the attitudes were a bit dated and stereotypical.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The fact that the Italian police close the case by pinning the murders on Major Sweet. In reality the Baron strangles the nasty Mr Mailer who was blackmailing him. Mailer was threatening to reveal he was married to his half sister. Interestingly, Alleyn thought the Baron was the nicest murderer he had ever met and doesn’t pursue or arrest him.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book where Alleyn is working undercover, in Rome for Scotland Yard. This time he is on the trail of a drug syndicate, which he believes is run by a man called Sebastian Mailer. We meet Mailer at the beginning of the book, where he is involved with a famous author and the loss of a manuscript. When we next meet Mailer he is running a tour group of Rome, and we find he is running a blackmail business as well as a drugs racket. The story goes from there, with Alleyn being careful not to unset the local authorities, joins a tour group run by Mailer, but all is not straight forward.
I thought this was one of Marsh's better stories, although I did miss Fox , who is a mainstay of the series. I was surprised by the ending, but not because of of the result of the investigation, but because of Alleyn's attitude towards it.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Inspector Alleyn mystery series by Ngaio Marsh is one of the classics, like Agatha Christie's mystery books or those of Josephine Tey... to name a few. I've enjoyed 13 of the books so far, all entertaining and excellent mysteries. When in Rome is one of the later books, originally published in 1970 and it finds Alleyn on his own, working undercover for Scotland Yard and Interpol in Rome.

Alleyn is trying to find out about the drug syndicates, led by a man known as Ziegfeldt. His syndicate has changed its routing of drugs and Alleyn believes his contact in Rome is a man by the name of Sebastian Mailer, a British citizen. Mailer has other side lights besides dealing drugs; they include blackmail and murder.

Mailer organizes a tour of the city, which includes visits to shady night spots. Alleyn instigates himself into one of the tours. The other members of the tour all have their own secrets; maybe being blackmailed or trying to purchase drugs from Mailer. It's an interesting group and becomes more interesting when a body is found and Mailer disappears.

There is your kernel of the story and mystery; and Alleyn must tred carefully and ensure he doesn't interfere or upset the Italian authorities in their own investigation. Marsh almost sets the story up as a play, as she does in many of her stories. She provides the Cast of characters and then enjoyably presents them and develops them.

As in all the Alleyn mysteries I've read so far, the Inspector is smart, intuitive and capable. He must work without his intrepid sidekick, Fox for this one, although we do see him briefly even just as a corresponder to Alleyn. As well, his love, Troy is only another character we see at the end of Alleyn's correspondence, but that suffices for this story. As always, enjoyable and caringly presented. It's not necessary to read in sequence although I'd suggest reading the first few to get comfortable with the story style and the various characters that people Marsh's excellent mystery series. (4 stars)

[Lizzytish · Rating 3 out of 5]

When in Rome, watch out for a strange tour guide? Alleyn is undercover to catch a drug dealer and other info. He joins a tour group of the most interesting variety of people! I must admit, I loved the descriptions of the baron and baroness! Twists and turn take place mainly in a basilica while Marsh gives detailed descriptions of Rome. Must admit I was very surprised by the ending in more ways than one.

[FangirlNation · Rating 4 out of 5]

As When in Rome, written in 1970 by Ngaio Marsh opens, famous author Barnaby Grant is visiting Rome, where his greatest novel, Simon, is set, when he loses the briefcase that contains the only manuscript of his book. He is relieved greatly three days later when Sebastian Mailer returns the book and asks Grant to read his own novella, which contains a minor theme from Grant’s book. A year later, Mailer uses this to argue that Grant plagiarized from Mailer’s book and uses that to blackmail Grant into becoming the special guest of Mailer’s exclusive and highly expensive tour under the name of Il Cicerone, highlighting locations featured in Grant’s book.

Read the rest of this review and other fun, geeky articles at Fangirl Nation

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how many thousand murder mysteries I've read, but unbelievably this is my first one by Ngaio Marsh. It was published in 1971 but felt 20 years earlier in the attitudes and language of her characters. They were all pretty much stock types, and she put them through their paces with some grace; but basically it was a pretty routine plot with the Roman policemen generally on the wrong track and only Inspector Alleyn having a real sense of what was going on. The real murderer was only revealed in the last few pages and was a bit of a surprise. That the red herrings were only red herrings was no surprise at all.

[John Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The setting for the murder is so evocative I wished I could see it. But when an identical “fictional” church was the setting for the first murder in Elizabeth Peters’ The Seventh Sinner, a little research showed that it’s the Basilica of San Clemente that’s being described. With two such authors plugging it, this is going to be high on my list of sites to visit if I ever get to Rome!

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very satisfying detective story in the classic mode. Published in 1970 and presumably set then, given the reference to the musical Hair, but feels more old fashioned than that due to the manners of the characters involved.
I will be looking out for further Ngaio Marsh books, particularly those set in New Zealand.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I liked the Italian setting, the mystery itself was not one of Marsh's best. And some of the slang really dates the book!

[ladydusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two years and six days later, after at least 2 restarts, I've finished.

It isn't that I didn't want to read it, or that I wasn't enjoying it, rather it wasn't a priority and I wasn't entirely engaged. It would fall down below other books and then I'd realize it had been months since I read any of it. Even this final re-start which began on June 30, or thereabout, took a while to get going and I read the final two chapters this afternoon.

To some extent, the jargon is dated and some of the implied conversations that made sense in context in the 1970s did so less sense today. This made reading it more effort than I generally put to a mystery. I had to carefully read each word and do some deciphering to carry on with the story and the plot. But then, I read most of the end in a sitting because I had to know. It took a while for the plot to develop to that state.

This is an improbable cast of characters thrown together on a tour of Rome. Why they registered for this tour is a question that matters to the outcome of the plot. Some have motive - some have none - for a crime against a fellow.

It's also not obviously a murder for a long time. It takes a long time for the plot to come round to dead bodies. It's rather slow to develop. Haha.

Perhaps not the best entree into reading Marsh, but the one I had at hand. I wouldn't discount another if it fell into my lap.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The elderly Dame Marsh gamely trying to usher the closed-room cozy past its cultural sell-by date, through all the social change of the post-War era, is not without its moments of bathos. A septuagenarian writing about youth culture in 1970 was inevitably going to have a hell of a time of it. Sure, she hits plenty of wrong notes.

So, duh, don't turn to Ngaio Marsh to get a feel for what 1970 felt like to people who were coming of age in that moment. But then, there are vast libraries of books out there that can give you a feel for that. What Marsh has on offer is a glimpse of what it must have felt like to be becoming elderly at that moment in time. She was clearly still plenty sharp, still trying to keep her hand in, not always able to hang with the kids -- but who of us will be? Who of us are?

A competent, enjoyable, forgettable genre mystery.

[ShanDizzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in the 1960s in Rome where Alleyn is on the trail of a notorious drug runner and one of his minions is killed while conducting a tour or Roman ruins.

{of Alleyn after finding Mailer's body down the ancient well in the excavated ruins} What, he sourly asked himself, was the position of a British investigator in Rome when a British subject of criminal propensities had almost certainly been murdered, possibly by another Briton, not impossibly by a Dutchman, not quite inconceivably by an Italian, on property administered by an Irish order of Dominican monks?

[Hella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een vriendin zat in Rome met een boek over Rome dat haar verveelde. Zij kloeg haar nood en ik als rechtgeaarde biepjuf ging op zoek naar boeken die in Rome spelen .
Ik zag de naam van Ngaio Marsh en herinnerde me het plezier dat ik in een grijs verleden aan haar boeken beleefde (Prisma-detectives, als ik me niet vergis).
Heb dit boek met veel plezier en heimwee naar Rome gelezen, maar eigenlijk is het een niemendalletje.

[Calum Reed · Rating 2 out of 5]

C:

Ngaio's trademark consistency takes a bit of a hit here, as this tour guide whodunit offers little real interest as a mystery. 150 pages go by before a body is found (too long), homosexuals are portrayed in a narrow-minded and completely unflattering light, and the conclusion feels anticlimactic. Disappointing.

[Ray LaManna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another well-written and engrossing Marsh story featuring inspector Allyn.

[Kateereidy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good and funny at times. I found it for free on the street in Berlin and it was cool that it was by a NZ author who turns out to be a famous writer that I'd never heard of. Now I know

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When in Rome he did as the ancient Romans. I am afraid he does not in the least regret it and I'm afraid I really can't say that I do.

[Adam Carson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is certainly not my favourite Marsh whodunnit. Superintendent Alleyn tags along to a tour group in Rome where the guide, a rather dubious character, disappears and a woman he argues with it turns up dead.

I loved the setting - there were some excellent descriptions of Rome and the general setting - it really made me want to visit. On the other hand I thought the plot was weak compared to Marsh’s usual work, the characters not as engaging and the denouement a bit of a fizzle.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the 26th Insp. Alleyn mystery, our policeman pays a visit to Rome, ostensibly on the trail of a drug-smuggling ring; soon, however, he's tasked with solving several other crimes -- including murder. While Alleyn usually works in England (or NZ, where Ms. Marsh was from), very occasionally he visited other countries (Spinsters in Jeopardy): this allowed our über-xenophobic author to craft scenarios where the far-superior northerner could outshine his southern counterparts.

I read that Ms. Marsh's publishers thought this was her best book. Well, that's subjective and any story that has little Fox and no Troy is never going to be my favorite. Nevertheless, while the solution to one mystery is pretty obvious from the beginning, I did not guess others until the end. I also appreciated three other aspects. First, as usual, the author is quite good at describing place. I've never been to Rome (and it wouldn't matter if I had), but the atmosphere she depicts is strong. Second, as usual, I appreciate her self-reflexivity ("'It's bloody cheek to say so but it always seems to me that a novelist who has set his book in a foreign environment is, in some sort, like an investigating officer.'"). Finally, not as usual, the perpetrator's motive is strong and understandable and almost all plot points are resolved (neither is usually the case in this series).

There are problems. It made little sense for the Baron to meet Mailer where he did, given that they had ample other opportunities to exchange the money more privately and with less risk. And you have to swallow a lot of disbelief regarding Mailer's blackmailing of Grant, given that he could not have known that Grant would return to Rome. As usual, the author is, in addition to her xenophobia, also racist (her dig at Dorothy L. Sayers is hypocritical, given that much of what Marsh didn't like about Sayers was true of herself). And I remain convinced, based on her character depictions, that Ms. Marsh is the only theatremaker to have never met a gay man. Finally, she wrote much longer than her Golden-Age Mystery peers (some would argue, past her sell-by date) and was never able to move with the times, so to speak. Her portrayal of the world past the late '50s bears no resemblance to any reality. Note: I see that other reviewers thought the beginning was slow. Since this is true of all her books -- she takes her time setting up character and conflict -- I discount this.

4 stars. I was okay with Alleyn not turning the Baron in. I agree that it's out of character, but Alleyn had no real proof -- as he admits -- and he didn't hide anything from the Italian police, who were free to purse that line of inquiry, if they wanted to. Note: "Artemis" is not the name of the Roman goddess. And I know this because...

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in July 1999.

Despite an initial feeling that When in Rome would join the list of below standard Marsh novels, it did grow on me as entertaining crime fiction as I read it. There are jarring elements - the offensive portrayal of the Italian police as incompetent and corrupt, the stereotypical drugs scene - but these are not so obvious as to totally destroy the reader's enjoyment.

Alleyn has travelled to Rome as part of an ongoing investigation into international drug dealing. His major lead in Rome points to one Sebastian Mailer, who works as a guide, taking exclusive groups to lesser know sights and the best nightlife, for an exorbitant fee. This activity is really a cover for supplying wealthy clients with drugs, while also being a lucrative operation in its own right.

Mailer has managed to get a hold over the famous author Barnaby Grant, whose latest novel is set in Rome. Through this he is able to get Grant to agree to act as the guide on a tour of the places that inspired scenes in the book. Alleyn joins the tour, posing as a fan. It is while the party is going round a church and the earlier archaeology excavated beneath it that Mailer disappears. Then a body is discovered, and Alleyn becomes involved in the Italian investigation into the murder as well as its connections with his own enquiries.

One particular problem in this novel is that for the first time I caught Marsh "cheating". She does not pass on to the reader information received by Alleyn in a report which is fairly crucial to a speedy solution to the case, just hinting at it in a summary of the report. The fact that I have not noticed this sort of thing in her other novels indicates that either she hasn't done it before or is usually more subtle about covering it up (and I suspect the latter).

[Katie Bee · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the tail of an international drug smuggler, Alleyn joins a guided tour in Rome. When a corpse turns up and the drug smuggler goes missing, Alleyn must sift through the stories of his fellow tourists to find the truth.

Pluses:
* I liked both Barnaby and Sophy. I also liked the Baron and Baroness.

Minuses:
* Alleyn gets to be Athletic, shimmying down a rope into a well in a catacomb, but apart from that he's pretty unnecessary. The calisthenics Marsh has to do to get him even nominally important to the Italian investigation are unconvincing.
* No Fox.
* No Troy.
* This is the first time I remember Marsh doing the common detective trope of "the detective knows the murderer but lets them get away". I don't believe that's Alleyn.
* The stereotypes are again extremely high.
* Marsh's portrayal of pot continues to be hilariously overblown.
* Whyyyyy are so many of Marsh's romances between girls of 18-22 and men of 40? Here we combine the age gap with the girl hero-worshipping the man, and the power imbalance is not fun. I love Barnaby and Sophy - separately. Together? No.

[Millicent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested to see this book described as her best by her publishers. I'm reading through all the Alleyns in order, and this one is enjoyable but I don't agree it's her best. Others in the series are more cleverly plotted (Death and the Dancing Footman for example) or a more interesting setting (the ancient British rituals in Death of a Fool were far more exotic to me than 60's era Rome), and including Troy as an on- rather than offstage character is always a plus. I missed her in this book. Also -- and this is my final nit to pick with what is a good book -- the Golden Age authors can get into trouble as they write plots and characters to keep up with the changing times. The Margery Allinghams of the 30's and 40's were delightful; those of the 60's not so much. I hope the rest of the Alleyns don't go that way.

[Carolyn Staton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Ngaio Marsh and have most of her books. Having said that, I must add that this book was a huge disappointment. It is one of her later books. She is writing in a decade in which she is not quite comfortable and it shows. Plot was very thin as well as character development.