Death and the Dancing Footman: Inspector Roderick Alleyn #11

Death and the Dancing Footman is the 11th novel by Ngaio Marsh that features her series detective Roderick Alleyn. The book at first reminded me of Cards on The Table by Agatha Christie, in that a rich eccentric man summons a specially selected group of guests who are antagonists and then finds that he loses all control of what his puppets do once he sets them in motion. However, that is about all the books have in common. While Christie’s foolish Mr. Shaitana selects four detectives and four people that he believes got away with murder, Marsh’s Jonathan Royal instead picks groups of guests who have personal reasons to hate each other.One frequent criticism I have heard of golden age writers and Christie in particular is that they write flat, 2 dimensional characters. I don’t believe this is so, at least by Christie and Marsh, but I can see how it can appear that way in certain stories. Cases that are heavy in the involvement of the detective from early on and are heavy on procedure or interviewing of suspects can sometimes seem this way because there is less room for the characters to interact with each other unless the writer expects to have a 400-page novel. In cases where the author doesn’t bring the detective in until much later in the plot, the writer has a lot more time to help us learn and understand the characters, their quirks, and their motivations. An excellent example of a Christie novel that fits that description is The Moving Finger, where Miss Marple doesn’t arrive on the scene until very late in the novel, and the reader gets to know the leads pretty well by then. This novel is like that. Alleyn does not make an appearance until much further along than your typical golden age mystery, and once he arrives, he makes short work of solving the case.While the case could be made that there are a few flat characters in the cast, I think most are very well drawn and interesting. Playwright Aubrey Mandrake was quickly a favorite of mine.I read many mysteries and often have difficulty finding the culprit, but in this case I was on to the killer very early and I understood how they did it. I do admit that I was a bit fuzzy about the motive. Despite me figuring it out so quickly, I found this a very entertaining mystery. The characters and setting were a definite strength. I give this a solid 5 stars and heartily recommend it.

Death in a White Tie, Death of a Peer, Grave Mistake, and this. These are my personal faves so far, for what it's worth!

Set in WWII, this book has the most complex murder mystery I had read up to that point (in order of publication). Marsh wrote some wonderful mechanics into the crime aspect of this story - truly Shakespearean levels of identity mix-up. The protagonist undergoes more change over time (one weekend!) than even Marsh usually assigns. There's also some exploration of how WWII created tensions for this upper-echelon of society - the changing nature of class relations in Britain, which is so relevant for a genre typically set on a posh estate. A well-written romance. I'd say the plot of this one went a little slower for me than others. I'd also say there were one or two characters/suspects who annoyed me more than usual. So that dampened my overall enjoyment of the book. Also I got the murderer wrong, which colors my enjoyment. But until I got it wrong, the complexity of the murder mystery and the main character made this one of my favorites, along with Marsh's wonderfully quirky sense of humor and the view into a darkening and turbulent era.

The characters, plot and dialog were on the edge of tedious, not just for being a couple days in the lives of self absorbed upper class twits, but for the inter-character prattle over one drama followed by another. Ngaoi Marsh clearly invents the 2000s reality TV format and then traps her characters in a building that is at once a bungalo and the mansion from Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca snowed in by a magical weather pattern that snaps from the driving blizzard of a bitter Cornwall winter to a lovely spring rain. She also expects the reader to have a familiar affection for Inspector Alleyn as she presents him not as a central character, but as a bit of a curmudgeon introduced late in the book to present the solution to the central mystery that seems borrowed from John Dickson Carr without much fanfare.

This follows "Overture to Death", and the two have many similarities. Alleyn doesn't appear only in the last few chapters, which is just too bad. Without her master sleuth (and well, one or two murders), Marsh's books turn into novels, and they are just not good enough for a novel. Repetitive characters, for example the two doctors in this and in the "Overture to Death" are nearly interchangeable, just like their love interests: the calculating, scheming femme fatales, don't help. The initial idea of a host who invites a bunch of people for a weekend party with huge conflicts between them, (but they still come and stay?) in the door of a a cataclysmic word war, is just weird and so unappealing to me. If somebody finds life so empty and boring that he has to put a bunch of people together who pretty much hate each other and watch this hate work it's way through them, is sick and doesn't entertain me. Funny thing how surprised he is when it ends up in murder. All in all a glimpse of the British elite just before WW2 started and as such, interesting.

I first read Ngaio Marsh more than 40 years ago, and especially remember how her engrossing plots helped me through labor and caring for a newborn. Now, all these years later (my son is 41!), I am rereading this particular book about Inspector Roderick Alleyn again - on my Kindle - and loving it just as much. It is so evocative of the war years in England, the customs and speech of both upper and lower classes, the attitudes and values - truly, it brings this period alive and provides rich detail for readers with an interest in history and social mores- and fun! Ngaio Marsh always injects something from her novels set in England about her New Zealand background, and this adds an additional dimension. Her mysteries are so well-plotted, and I defy anyone to figure out who the murderer is before the grand revelation! I will now go on to reread all of her books - they are well and carefully written.

This is an audiobook of one of Ngaio Marsh's detective novels, and it is a very good reading of the story. The story itself is set in the early years of the Second World War, and describes what happens when Jonathan Royal, of Highfield Manor, decides to hold a house-party with a group of extremely ill-assorted people. They include two brothers who dislike each other, and a girl who was going out with one but who is now engaged to the other. There is also the brothers' mother. She has been disfigured by a plastic surgeon, Dr. Hart - and he has been invited too! In addition there are two rival beauty specialists. And that is not all. . . ! Most of the guests are unaware that the others are coming until they arrive. Jonathan has brought these warring factions together with an impish desire to see what happens! He soon finds out, when mysterious accidents happen - and then someone is found murdered! By then the area is covered by heavy snow. It is known that Chief Inspector Alleyn, of Scotland Yard, is in a nearby village. Can he be reached? There is an exciting and dangerous journey through snow-covered roads to find him. Will he be able to solve the mystery? Will the reader be able to solve it before Alleyn? And the dancing footman? He plays a very important part in revealing who the REAL murderer is! This is a good example of a traditional detective novel and is most entertaining and satisfactory!

Jonathan Royal decides on a little mischief making and holds a house party in which all the guests have quarrels or enmities with each other. The party starts during a snow storm with all the guests snowed in and unable to go anywhere for the duration. Two apparent practical jokes make the company uneasy and it starts to seem that maybe someone could end up dead. Nicholas Compline feels he is the intended victim and at least some of the guests think the perpetrator is a plastic surgeon - Dr Francis Hart.When a murder finally takes place it leaves the guests shocked and chastened - and for a while without the police to investigate. Roderick Alleyn does not appear on the scene until two thirds of the way through the book - thanks to the snow. When he does appear, he and his team very quickly sort the wheat from the chaff and solve the murder. Another guest has died before the murderer is unmasked and the guests sent home.I enjoyed this book and thought the relationships between the house party guests were well done. There are plenty of clues scattered around for the observant reader to pick up but it is all too easy to become mired in the detail and completely fail to spot the murderer. In my opinion you can't beat Ngaio Marsh's plotting skills or her ability to create believable characters.

It's a country house murder mystery, but it's far from cosy. Eccentric, wealthy Jonathan Royle handpicks his weekend guests in the early months of the war, taking great care to ensure they will all hate each other. James Saxon reads the unabridged version. He's a great reader of Christie and especially Marsh, achieving feats of characterisation when faced with dodgy Australian parsons and rough-diamond tourists. But he doesn't do so well here - he seems daunted by this cast of upper middle class guests, a couple of Viennese refugees, and a chorus of domestics and rustics. He responds by making all the house party members sound affected. Lesser doesn't fall into this trap - he's a very good reader and I look forward to listening to his Dickens. But unfortunately this version is abridged. Marsh's original book could do with abridging, and sensibly this version has trimmed the yokels and servants. However, a lot of dialogue is cut, meaning that the dramatis personae lose personality, and the romance seems rushed and uninteresting. Dialogue that isn't cut ends up as reported speech, which is dull. The abridger seems to have concentrated on the mystery at the expense of atmosphere and human interest.

Ngaio Marsh writes intelligent, interesting, excellent detective stories. Just the thing you need for cold winter evenings, they are warm and cosy and although people get murdered in the most dreadful way, you are never frightened out of your socks.OK so they are set in the 1930's when there was so much difference between the 'classes' and OK there is a vast difference between the 1930's police and the 2017 police - but who cares, a villain is a villain for all that.

My first Ngaio Marsh (pronounced Ni-oh, apparently). Not much to criticise. She's very 'basic' compared with Sayers but with better characterisation than Christie. Then again, Christie deliberately avoided it. If you want a puzzle, it's a good one. There's a huge clue at one point. It's . . . .