Warning: Spoilers! Ngaio Marsh The Nursing Home Murder (1935) The third Alleyn mystery, and Marsh has mastered novel writing. Alleyn has lost some of his facetiousness, Fox has become the sidekick and sounding board, Bathgate and Angela have been demoted to “bright young things” as hangers on. Alleyn gives them the job of finding out a few facts about anarchists (the Red Scare was current at the time the novel was written). The victim, O’Callaghan, was a cabinet Secretary about to introduce a Bill limiting civil freedoms as applied to Communists and such. This is one of the confounding factors, another is a cast-off mistress, who is loved by the surgeon who must operate on O’Callaghan’s inflamed appendix.
As you can see, the plot is tricky, the murder less so. Marsh provides all the clues, even the unnoticed injection puncture at the hairline of the victim, referred as a possibility by the pathologist. The murderer is a eugenics fanatic with a Saviour complex, a bit thin, but the puzzle requires some such far fetched motive. The writing is much better. The characterisation is much indebted to theatrical types; I get the impression that Marsh was as much casting a play as writing a novel. No matter, it’s good entertainment. **½
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