From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Overture to Death (Roderick Alleyn, #8)

Ngaio Marsh

Start date: August 1, 2018

Finish date: August 31, 2018

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: The 8th book in our Ngaio Marsh challenge
[close] The 8th book in our Ngaio Marsh challenge

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 166 topics — 7,784 comments total

Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 14 posts · 16 views

last updated Sep 02, 2025 12:08AM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
By Susan · 4 posts · 12 views

last updated Sep 01, 2025 04:16PM

showing 2 of 2 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Aug 19, 2018 Bev rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: vintage-mystery, mystery, mount-tbr-2018, mcpl-book, british-mystery, marsh-challenge

When reading the synopsis for Overture to Death (1939) by Ngaio Marsh, one can be excused for thinking that this will be another of her theatrical mysteries. After all, it tells us that a group of seven amateur actors are preparing to put on the play Shop Windows when Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C Sharp Minor" is set for the overture. Then on opening night the pianist barely gets started--playing three chords and then stepping on soft pedal--before a loud bang is heard and Miss Idris Campanula fa When reading the synopsis for Overture to Death (1939) by Ngaio Marsh, one can be excused for thinking that this will be another of her theatrical mysteries. After all, it tells us that a group of seven amateur actors are preparing to put on the play Shop Windows when Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C Sharp Minor" is set for the overture. Then on opening night the pianist barely gets started--playing three chords and then stepping on soft pedal--before a loud bang is heard and Miss Idris Campanula falls dead against the sheet music. There's no performance and the play setting itself features very little in the plot other than to provide a way for Marsh to insert a rather ingenious method of murder. I'm quite sure I'd never come across a deadly piano before I read this one the first time (long ago and far way from our local library).

The stars of Marsh's show are Miss Campanula and her bosom friend Miss Eleanor Prentice, two embittered old maids who like nothing more than to spread dreadful rumors about their neighbors and then confess their sins to the handsome rector. Of course, the dear friends are also rivals for the rector's regard--each woman imagining herself to be the front-runner in the "rector's wife" stakes. When Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives on the scene to decide who gave Miss Campanula such a dramatic death scene, he finds that he must first discover if the murderer has cast the right woman as victim. For until about twenty minutes or so before curtain time, everyone assumed that Miss Prentice would be playing her standard piece as the opening. She is prevented from doing so by an infected finger and only agrees to give up her martyr's determination to play no matter how much it hurt after the rector convinces her. There seems to have been no time for the gun to have been rigged up in the piano after the change in pianists took place--so was Miss Prentice the intended victim? And what was the motive? Do people really kill just because someone is a meddling, gossipy busybody?

This was an enjoyable entry in the Alleyn case files. A cast of interesting characters from repressed village spinsters and the handsome cleric to the county squire and the young lovers (whose parents are forbidding the match) to the doctor and his adulterous love interest, the attractive widow; a clever murder method; a heaping helping of red herrings (some provided courtesy of the young scamp George Biggins; and plenty of humor and excellent dialogue. Alleyn does an amusing turn as Holmes and we (blessedly) see little of Nigel Bathgate (I am getting a bit tired of Mr. Bathgate). Great fun even though I remembered who the culprit is. ★★★ and a half. (rounded to four here)

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks. ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

May 19, 2011 Abbey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: series, reviewed, favorites, myst-cosies, myst-fems-project, vintage, myst-police, own, myst-set-andor-auth-uk

1939, #8 Inspector Roderick Alleyn, rural Dorset; classic village cosy.

A stunningly intricate murder plot immersed in village life, two spinsters warring over a yummy clergyman, amateur theatricals, and an exploding piano make this a wonderful confection for classic mystery readers, and there’s just enough darkness mixed in to give it a nice edge.

All the usual suspects are here, for along with the spinsters and the clergyman there’s the Squire, the young lovers (Squire’s son and clergyman’s da ...more

1 like · Like · see review

May 04, 2019 Zander rated it it was ok

Shelves: classic-queens-of-crime

My least favorite Marsh book so far. I read a couple books before deciding to read her books in order. Although she is considered of the four Queens of Crime I find her books to be more formulatic than Christie, Allingham and Sayers and to more plodding that those authors. Her detective is perhaps more believable since he has a reason to be there as he is an actual police officer and not a rich gent playing private detective or an elderly busybody. However that means he often is little involved ...more

Like · see review

Aug 19, 2018 Louise Culmer rated it it was ok

Amateur theatricals lead to murder, and Inspector Alleyn has to sort it out. This rather tiresome book is chiefly notable for the marked hostility shown by the author towards middle aged spinsters, of whom there are two in this story, both grotesque caricatures. I couldn't help reflecting how much better and more subtle Agatha Christie was in her characterisations. THe identity of the murderer is quite obvious, I cherished a faint hope that I might turn out to be mistaken, but I wasn't. Again, h ...more

Like · see review

Oct 12, 2021 Bev rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british-mystery, mystery, vintage-mystery, bought-2018

see review other editions

1 like · Like · see review

Nov 13, 2016 Melinda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I knew who the murderer was by page 30 but enjoyed the mystery all the same. This was the first of this series that I remember where a character took God's name in vain. That was disappointing. ...more

Like · see review

Oct 05, 2013 Teri-K rated it really liked it

Shelves: great-to-re-read, historical-mystery, mystery-golden-age

This is one of my favorite of Marsh's books. I really like Dinah and Henry, the young couple in the story. They're quite likable but also occasionally amusing, as they solemnly analyze their elders with a fun combination of wisdom and naivete. I like Henry and Dinah's fathers, they fill the required stereotypical roles while still being interesting. I even like the feuding spinsters.

Also, the plot is attractive with an amateur play, a young delinquent with a squirt gun, and other elements that ...more

Like · see review

Jun 05, 2014 Lemar rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery, novel

Ngaio Marsh is great company. This mystery was full of humor, clever deductions and above all a sympathetic yet incisive eye illuminating human foibles and triumphs.

Like · see review