Death in Zanzibar in Retro Reads

Jan 01, 2015 Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ rated it liked it

Shelves: library-has, dated-social-attitudes, suspense, mystery

3.33 stars. After reading M.M. Kaye's epic The Far Pavilions and her almost-epic Trade Wind, it was a little startling to see a very different side of the author come out in this whodunnit murder/hidden treasure mystery. It was kind of like reading an old-fashioned Mary Stewart romantic suspense novel (pretty much always a good thing) with a liberal infusion of Agatha Christie.

I checked out this really massive book from the library that contains three of Kaye's mysteries, including Death in Zanz 3.33 stars. After reading M.M. Kaye's epic The Far Pavilions and her almost-epic Trade Wind, it was a little startling to see a very different side of the author come out in this whodunnit murder/hidden treasure mystery. It was kind of like reading an old-fashioned Mary Stewart romantic suspense novel (pretty much always a good thing) with a liberal infusion of Agatha Christie.

I checked out this really massive book from the library that contains three of Kaye's mysteries, including Death in Zanzibar, and read this one first, because it continues the story of the gold ingots (now worth $3 million) hidden away by Rory Frost in about 1860 in Trade Wind. It's now the late 1950s, and a young Englishwoman, Dani Ashton, is traveling to Zanzibar to visit her mother and stepfather, Emory Frost, who is Rory's grandson and is living in Rory's old plantation home.

Emory asks Dani to pick up a document from his London lawyer and bring it to him. This document - dun dun dun! - has something to do with Rory's hidden treasure. Then things start to go wrong for Dani: in short order she's locked out of her London hotel room in her sheer nylon nightgown (hey, it was the fifties!); meets a rich and handsome American, Lash Holden, who may or may not be all he seems; gets her hotel room tossed and passport stolen; and finds out the lawyer she got the document from has been killed and she is personally wanted by the authorities for questioning.

Lash is drunk because of a broken engagement and Dani is scared out of her wits, and between the whiskey and the fear the two of them decide that it's a good idea to disguise Dani as Lash's secretary (so she can use the secretary's passport) and hop on a plane for Zanzibar to avoid trouble. (!!!!) Naturally, this course of action ends up stirring up way more trouble than it avoids. Plus there's a murderer in their group who wants that document Dani got from the lawyer . . .

If you like your mysteries very retro and with a dash of 50's-style romance to spice them up, this is kind of a fun one. Written in 1959, its age shows: the innocent heroine surrounded by alpha males and seductive femme fatales, some outdated social attitudes, pervasive smoking, and the aforementioned nylon nightie. It's not very deep and it's certainly not epic, but still, it's a decent murder mystery set in an unusual, exotic location. ...more

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Aug 01, 2018 mark monday rated it liked it

Shelves: murdertime, to-die-for

surprisingly, this was the least evocative of the Death in... novels by M.M. Kaye. and I had such high hopes for imagining myself in Zanzibar, which is one of those places like Tangier and pre-war Beirut and pre-separation Cyprus that I would have loved to live in before various traumas changed those places utterly. Zanzibar! even just the name conjures up so much.

the reason that this novel is so different from its predecessors is that fully half of it takes place over the course of our cast of surprisingly, this was the least evocative of the Death in... novels by M.M. Kaye. and I had such high hopes for imagining myself in Zanzibar, which is one of those places like Tangier and pre-war Beirut and pre-separation Cyprus that I would have loved to live in before various traumas changed those places utterly. Zanzibar! even just the name conjures up so much.

the reason that this novel is so different from its predecessors is that fully half of it takes place over the course of our cast of characters actually traveling to Zanzibar. so many scenes in hotels and waiting rooms and airplanes. fortunately this is not at all as boring as it may sound, and it was an interesting and unusual experience for me. murder across several continents, murder while the cast is constantly moving, murder as various randos are coming and going. it was fun.

unfortunately the heroine is the drippiest and dullest of all the heroines I've read so far in a Kaye novel. quite a bother. she's balanced out a bit by a great leading man - a drunken, brash American aristocrat with one of those amusingly insulting styles that appeared to get a pass mid-20th century - but still. she's on every. single. page. she sucks.

once they get to Zanzibar, Kaye does her usual job at creating wonderful atmosphere full of foreboding moments and plummy dialogue.

(view spoiler)

so far: Death in Cyprus > Death in Kashmir > Death in Kenya > Death in Zanzibar. ...more

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Apr 19, 2020 Deborah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: tanzania, great-britain-uk

Sheltered and naive Dany Ashton is on her way for her first visit to Zanzibar to meet her mother and stepfather by way of London, Naples, Khartoum, Nairobi, Mombasa, Tanga, and Pemba. Air travel has certainly changed since the 1950s. Through a series of missteps and impulsiveness, Dany with the assistance of the drunk and newly jilted Lash Holden become embroiled in a conspiracy of murder, subterfuge, and theft in the search for a lost treasure. Even though there was a narrow list of suspects, I ...more

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Jul 29, 2010 Hannah rated it liked it

Shelves: 2011-reads, re-read, mysteries, 2020-reads

The locale: the island of Zanzibar, and a return to Kivulimi: "The House of Shade", made memorable as the home of that 19th century slaver, Rory Frost, in Kaye's epic historical masterpiece: Trade Wind. Now 70 years after Rory's death, his writer grandson Tyson Frost now holds the lease to Kivulimi, and is preparing to soon publish "Roaring Rory's" infamous diaries. Dany Ashton's mother is married to Tyson, and Dany has been asked to pick up a parcel from Tyson's solicitor in England before she ...more

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Jan 24, 2017 Christine PNW rated it really liked it

Shelves: vintage-women

This is - sadly - my final M.M. Kaye vintage mystery. I've thoroughly enjoyed all of them, with their exotic settings, their vintage atmosphere, and their old-school romances. In order or preference:

Death in Kenya
Death in Kashmir
Death in Zanzibar
Death in the Andamans
Death in Cyprus
Death in Berlin

I'm contemplating rereading Kaye's masterpiece - the doorstopper-sized The Far Pavilions - although I may go ahead and read her other two, less well-known, sweeping epics first: Trade Wind and Shadow of ...more

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Jul 20, 2017 Barb in Maryland rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, romance, historical-fiction

Oh this was a tough one to grade.
The descriptions of the various locations, the deft handling of the politics of the time (late 1950s) and place (East Africa, especially Zanzibar itself) rate 5 stars with me. The mystery itself was a rather nice one, what with two murders, a mysterious letter and rumors of a vast wealth in hidden gold. I give that part a solid 3 stars.
I had a lot of trouble with our young heroine. Dany Ashton is so young (in age, experience and common sense) that I spent most o ...more

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Jan 27, 2015 Diane Lynn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: romance, mystery, africa

Another fun little mystery from one of my favorite authors. There is a touch of romance in this one. I do enjoy these mysteries but they are dated with a very meek, helpless heroine.

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Mar 29, 2022 Jenn Estepp rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindling, pandemic-and-aftermath, sleuths-and-gumshoes, comfort-food

3 1/2. It was a very slow starter for me and, frankly, the set-up and initial actions taken by the protagonist are fairly ridiculous. Like, I know that the naïve young girl caught up in international intrigue is the bread and butter of these books and in part why I like them, but this one really took it to the extreme. The plausibility of it is explained eventually, but still. That said, once I got into it, I pretty much didn't want to stop until I got to the end and I was mostly satisfied with ...more

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Mar 02, 2015 Karen rated it liked it

Shelves: travel-the-world

2.5 stars really. I think I read one of M.M. Kaye's mysteries (Kenya maybe), and liked it, but I didn't really like the way she portrayed women in this book. I was disappointed with it. ...more

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