Grave Mistake and Two Other Great Mysteries: Grave Mistake / Spinsters in Jeopardy / Overture to Death

by Ngaio Marsh

Grave Mistake
A spa stay turns into a homicidal holiday...A bit snobbish and a trifle high-strung, Sybil Foster prides herself on owning the finest estate in Upper Quintern and hiring the best gardener. In fact, she is rapturous over the new asparagus beds when a visit from her unwelcome stepson sends her scurrying to a chic spa for a rest cure, a liaison with the spa's director...and an apparent suicide. Her autopsy holds one surprise, a secret drawer a second. And Inspector Roderick Alleyn, C.I.D., digging about Upper Quintern, may unearth still a third...deeply buried motive for murder.

Spinsters in Jeopardy
An exotic end for an English spinster

En route to a family vacation on the French Riviera, Inspector Roderick Alleyn glimpses from the train a shocking tableau. In a moonlit window a white-robed figure raises a knife to a woman's shadow. Thus begins his incognito exploration of the Chateau of the Silver Goat...where a jet-set cult's 'Way of Life' could spell death for a maiden lady of a certain age-and even for Alleyn's own young son unless he can unveil its illicit mysteries...

Overture to Death
Amateur actors set the stage for murder...

Who in the quiet village of Chipping would kill wealthy spinster Idris Campanula? Plenty of people, among them her fellow cast members from a troubled charity production. Miss Campanula was a spiteful gossip, gleefully destroying others' lives merely for her won excitement. But once Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives, he quickly realizes that the murderer might have killed the wrong woman-and may soon stage a repeat performance

Genres: Mystery

693 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

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

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an omnibus book club edition, containing Grave Mistake, Overture to Death, and Spinsters in Jeopardy. I have already reviewed the last since I had another copy of it, but the first two I do not have separately. However, they are both re-reads, as usual.

Overture To Death (started July 23, finished July 23)
started April 15
This story is fascinating. Two spinsters are both after the rector who is too wishy-washy to fend them off, much as he would like to. They profess to be friends, but at the same time compete at everything. The Jernighams, father and son, are local landowners; one of the spinsters is their sister and aunt, respectively, who lives with them and drives them nuts. The son is in love with the rector's daughter Dinah, but his father and the rector both disapprove of the attachment. This group, plus the local doctor and a newcomer femme fatale whom he drags along and has designs on, are all involved in putting on a play to raise money for a new piano for the church's young people's group. There is much infighting over which play to do, who gets which part, and who will play the overture and entr'acte on the existing old piano. The two spinsters duel over who is to play the piano; each has her 'signature' piece and wants to play, partly to impress the poor rector. The first night of the play, the pianist is shot dead, apparently from inside the piano. Since the local police have more than they can handle already, the Yard - Alleyn and Fox - is called in. The characterizations in this story are wonderful: the nasty spinsters, the loving young couple, the doting doctor, the father who thinks his Edwardian affectations are the way to woo the femme fatale (embarrassing his son in the process), and the beleaguered rector are all beautifully drawn. A local policeman and some other locals add some humor to the story as well. I really enjoyed this even though I remembered a lot of it from previous readings.
April 2024 reading again - in order - this is #8

Grave Mistake (started July23, finished July 24)
Friends Verity and Sybil discuss the shortage of gardeners, and when Mrs. Black's brother, conveniently named Mr. Gardener, comes to town Sybil is one of the first to snap him up. She can't say enough about how wonderful he is, and he does seem a good gardener. The ladies are both invited to dinner by a new resident, the wealthy Mr. Markos, who with his handsome son Gideon has recently done over a huge house in the area. There they meet Dr. Schramm (formerly Smythe), with whom Verity has some history. Dr. Schramm immediately bewitches Sybil; he has taken a post at Greengages, a hotel-cum-hospital, to which Sybil has retired before because of her 'nerves'. Sybil's daughter Prunella (Prue) is quite taken by Gideon. Later, Sybil tells Verity that her stepson Claude, a rather questionable individual, is going to arrive. Sybil is going to Greengages and tells Verity she must not tell Claude where she is. Later, when Prue and Gideon wish to become engaged, they talk Verity into going to Greengages with them to 'smooth the way', since Sybil wants Prue to marry someone else. While they are there, both Claude and the gardener arrive; the gardener has been coming to visit Sybil and bring her flowers on a regular basis, and Claude has wormed the location out of him. Later that night, Sybil is discovered dead, apparently a suicide. But there is enough doubt that the inquest is adjourned and Inspector Alleyn is brought in. He eventually discovers evidence of murder, and suspects abound. The significance of the title becomes clear towards the end, when Alleyn decides that Sybil's coffin must be unearthed. This book was a bit of a slow read, compared to some of the others, possibly because of the large number of suspects and lack of clues. However, Alleyn's hunches prove true in the end. This one would be worth only 4 stars at most, but I gave the book as a whole five because the other two stories are so good.

[Stephanie]

Includes Spinsters in Jeopardy and Overture to Death