Death in Ecstasy / Vintage Murder / Artists in Crime

Roderick Alleyn

by Ngaio Marsh

The second volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries. Includes Death in Ecstasy (originally published: London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936), Vintage Murder (originally published: London: Geoffrey Bles, 1937), Artists in Crime (originally published: London: Geoffrey Bles), "Portrait of Troy" and "Death on the Air" (first published in Death on the air and other stories: HarperCollins, 1995.)

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Golden Age Mystery, Fiction, Murder Mystery, Mystery Thriller

752 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

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

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ngaio Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn series have been republished in trios, and I’m going to read them all.

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, I'm really enjoying Marsh this time around. I'm not sure why I didn't love her first book the first time I read it, but I happily finished the sixth book last night. She makes everything quite vivid, and the number of things she can communicate only with dialogue is high. Such efficient writing.

I will say, and loudly, that this writing is a product of its author, who is a product of her culture and time, i.e., like all the other golden age mystery novels I am reading right now, these books are sprinkled with casual homphobia, racism, classism, and colonial thought. (The most innocuous example is the Americans. They always sound so ridiculous!) There are places I get mad and think, come on, really? Did we really think this way? And there are also places I recognize my present-day culture, twisted and evil in the same ways, getting on a hundred years later. This is why I read things from the past, warts and all - you get to see the ways thinking has changed, see the ways it hasn't changed, and know what change still needs to happen.

I read the last book the most recently, so I have it on my mind - it was interesting structurally chiefly because of how everything pointed to the sculptor doing it, and he did do it, and the twist in the end was that there was more to the story instead of the clever reversal of evidence. .

I won't say I didn't like the introduction of someone Alleyn is really attracted to, but I did not like how quickly he managed to fall in love. Wimsey does the same thing, with Harriet Vane, but happily their relationship takes a reasonable amount of time to develop. We shall see how Marsh handles Alleyn and Troy in future books.

Alas, for the rest of the series is not available from the library! I may have to slow down a bit, yes?

[Dorothy Bonett · Rating 3 out of 5]

She's always a thoughtful writer with a great style but here the subject matter is distasteful and although she's not explicit this bleeds through. The murder takes place during a pagan cult ceremony (in a gloomy and dreary 30's London). Drugs are involved (at least character is an addict) and the cult leader is taking advantage of the people in the cult financially and sexually. Marsh, and the detectives find all the memories the cult with a couple of exceptions to be disgusting as well as foolish --its interesting how many reviewers herehave noticed the distate only in the cases of the acolytes Whitley and Smith.
I find it hard to recommend this on some levels but it's an interesting and well-written reminder how vulnerable to certain charlatans humans are. From this to Jonestown isn't far.

[Peggy]

Disappointing. I really wanted to like this author. Judy Holland recommended her. Too convoluted with too many characters I couldn’t keep straight. Reread the solution and still can’t follow it. I probably didn’t pay close enough attention to the details, but they just didn’t interest me. Some great British/dated expressions and some subtle laugh out loud lines. House of the sacred flame, chosen vessel, poisoned chalice.
“In the Light of the Sacred Flame all mysteries are but different facets of the One Mystery, all Gods but different aspects of one Godhead. Time is but an aspect of Eternity, and the doorway to Eternity is Spiritual Ecstasy. JASPER GARNETTE.”

[Martin Pilkington · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of the books in the Inspector Alleyn series are very easy to read. Unlike the tv series which is ever in the late 1940s, early 1950s, these books were written in the 1930s and so there are occasional ways of thinking and speaking that jar slightly on a modern reader. If you have seen the tv series it is easy to see Patrick Malahide and William Simons as Alleyn and Fox, and in the last book in this set Belinda Lang as Troy. (How different would the tv series have been if Simon Williams had been in more than the pilot?)

Highly enjoyable series of books.

[Strix · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it's been a year since I read this, I distinctly remember them as light, popcorn mystery. Not as light as cozies can be, but you read these to enjoy the mysteries as they get unraveled by the charming inspector.

Recommended if you want Agatha Christie-lite, but not so lite as to go for a cozy.

[Terry Lowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first 4 books in the series (this is the 4th). The pattern is a bunch of people present at the crime and the first half of the book is them trying to sort through the people which is slow. The last half was better but it would be nice if the theme was mixed up a bit more. Otherwise a pretty good book.

[Barry Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

This is the second Ngaio Marsh trilogy and it was excellent. I love old fashioned police procedurals as there is very little technology to rely on except fingerprints and tyre tracks, it makes a change from the technology that is currently used.

[Jo-Anne McBride · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to be abandoned as it was impossible to get through the homophobia. Yes, she was a product of her time, etc., but the way everyone held these two characters in disdain was too much. When you add in her antisemitism it is unreadable. Not recommended.

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Artists in crime was my favourite of the 4 - would have 5* this

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a vintage mystery it is ok. The investigation techniques have come a long way in the past few decades.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid mysteries, nice process, moderately engaging characters .

[Sue Garwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m loving Inspector Alleyn and regretting not having discovered him sooner. He’s calm , courteous and is dryly numerous. More than 20 left to read!

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death in Ecstasy - I find there is more development and the writing is more established in this book. I enjoyed the look into a 1930's religious cult. I also enjoyed that this novel was a lot more fast paced and actually initiated by Nigel rather than the cast themselves. Although the cast themselves are very unusual along with the setting. However the timelessness experienced in her other books is not here for this one as the scorn of the 'effeminate' characters is harsh as well as the use of stereotypes in the characters.
Vintage Murder -
Artists in Crime - I have found a new series to read!! I enjoyed the mystery, it was a classic crime mystery, I figured out the murderer by about the 60% mark, but could not figure out how it was done until closer to the end. However, that did not stop me from enjoying everything else about the book. The characters were interesting and I enjoyed the main character Roderick Alleyn and his team. He seems like a more realistic Sherlock Holmes and more personable Poirot. Written in the 1930s, I thought this novel aged a lot better than Agatha Christie's work. It felt like it relied more on the actual police work and I was surprised Marsh was seen as a "Queens of Crime", along with Agatha Christie as I had never heard of her. I also enjoyed that this had a lot less offensive language in it than Christie's works. I think I am going to start from the beginning and read this series.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read Marsh's Golden Age contemporaries Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, but this was my first Marsh novel. What impressed me the most was how prescient and still-relevant themes were wrapped up in her otherwise sanitary Golden Age work.

Religion is a business (and, some 20 years before L. Ron Hubbard invented Scientology) and cults are still being invented. People need to believe, and pay for that need in money and, in this case, with lives. Of course, it's not necessarily that simple because attraction and seduction play significant roles as well. Once the church is derailed, one woman moans that there will be "no more ceremonies?", which is rather sad because she needs her belief and her rituals (as does Alleyn need his pre- and post-case rituals).

Drug use and drug trade is also featured prominently, though this is certainly not a gritty expose by any stretch. But drugs help to ensure belief...religion is, after all, the opiate of the masses. And this also underscores the business end of the faith. And while rehab is now nothing more than an exploitable, dramatic cliche for reality tv, Alleyn suggests "scientific study" for this mania.

The final surprise for me was the relatively good representation of gays, which I'm sure is owed in part to Marsh's life-long experience in the theater. The characters refer to the two flambuoyantly over-the-top gays as "queers" and "sissies" but Alleyn is more acquiescent, referring wittily to "the unspeakable Claude," an obvious reference to the Lord Alfred Douglas poem written for his lover, Oscar Wilde. But these characters are no better or worse than the others, and are not the villains they'd have been in a more hard-boiled fiction of the time. The church itself is populated by "others": women and foreigners. Homosexuality is merely an extension of that grouping. And, do note, that these two queens are acolytes, assuredly a telling descriptor of their proclivities in both the church and elsewhere.

I absolutely intend to read more of Marsh's wonderful Inspector Alleyn and his prescient adventures in the Golden Age.

[Milly Cent · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I really enjoyed,Death in Ecstacy. Vintage Murder was dreadful.