From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Off With His Head (Roderick Alleyn #19)

Ngaio Marsh

Start date: July 1, 2019

Finish date: July 31, 2019

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: Next in our Inspector Alleyn challenge. This book is also known as Death of a Fool.
[close] Next in our Inspector Alleyn challenge. This book is also known as Death of a Fool.

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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 16 posts · 18 views

last updated Sep 12, 2025 08:12PM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
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last updated 7 hours, 30 min ago

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What Members Thought

Jul 03, 2019 Susan rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is the nineteenth, Roderick Alleyn novel, in what is a slightly infuriating series. If any author could be called inconsistent – often brilliant, but too often banal, then Marsh is that author. Some of her mysteries are fantastic and there have been many that I have really enjoyed. However, this book, published in 1957, feels to be almost written by rote.

We have a small village, a winter solstice, and – bizarrely – morris dancing. Add a stereotypical German folk specialist, a pair of lover ...more

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Jan 22, 2022 Mike Penlington rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ngaio-marsh, ytd2022

An excellent whodunit and, perhaps more puzzling, howdunit! Some interesting insights into old English folklore and Morris dancing, later of which I really had no understanding of at all I discovered.

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Jul 01, 2019 ShanDizzy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

'Has it ever occurred to you,'Alleyn said,'that the progress of a case is rather like a sort of thaw? Look at that landscape.'
He wiped the mist from their carriage window. Sergeants Bailey and Thompson...stared out with the air of men to whom all landscapes are alike. Mr. Fox, with slightly raised brows, also contemplated the weakly illuminated and dripping prospect.
'Like icing,' he said, 'running off a wedding cake. Not that I suppose it ever does.'
[Alleyn replied]'Such are the pitfalls of anal ...more

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Dec 27, 2013 John Frankham rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-detective

I love Ngaio Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn books, and this is probably my third read of this one over the decades. It remains good, but is still one of the least good. A good cast of characters from high to low, and an interesting situation in which a murder occurs, but the unravelling of the mystery becomes stodgy as the minutiae of the folk-dancing event are picked over and repeated.

The GR blurb:

‘When the pesky Anna Bünz arrives at Mardian to investigate the rare survival of folk-dancing still prac ...more

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Jun 28, 2019 Jill rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ngaio-marsh

I thought the beginning was good and really portrayed the cold and isolation of the surroundings, also the close-knit of the people of the village. After that I found myself getting a bit irritated by the silly lovers and the repeated description of the dance. The attempt at language was also irritating. The family were made to look lacking in intelligence because of their beliefs, being only slightly better than their epileptic member. Not one of Marsh's better books in my opinion. ...more

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Jul 05, 2019 Sandy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-classic, mystery-detective-grp, zngaio-challenge-2019, rread-2019

A slow read for me and not as good as most of Marsh's books. Perhaps too much detail about Morris dancing? Or rather lifeless characters? There are better ones in the series. ...more

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