Murder at Winter Solstice, on the High Seas, and in the Theatre: Three by Marsh

 

Ngaio Marsh. Off With His Head (1958) A Mrs Bünz, fan of English folklore, arrives at Mardian village in order to observe the Seven Swords Dance, a mummery exhibited every Winter Solstice further back then human memory can reach. The granddaughter of William Andersen, ignorantly cruel patriarch of the family that performs the ritual, also arrives. Her goal is some kind of reconciliation on behalf of her mother, who ran off with a Catholic count, thus offending both William’s class-snobbery and Chapel religionism.
     The murder is apparently impossible, but Alleyn and his team winkle out the truth in this neatly plotted and sometimes insightful novel. There’s a good deal of by-the-way information about mummery, Morris dancing, the Green man, etc, and bucolic mores (some of it rather stereotypical). Marsh provides a nice mix of romance and psychology, but she doesn’t give herself room for the nuanced character building that makes most of her work such a pleasant read, so I give this merely a **½

Ngaio Marsh. Singing in the Shrouds (1958) A serial killer has murdered three times. He leaves flower petals and a broken string of pearls on the victims, and has been heard singing nearby. When his most recent victim is found clutching part of an embarkation notice for the Cape Farewell, Alleyn must join the cruise as a supposed VIP connection to the ship’s owners. A murder does ensue, but the killer’s vanity undoes him. Since he was an obnoxious ass, poetic justice feels right.
     The puzzle is, as usual, fairly presented and solved. Since Brer Fox is unavailable, Alleyn must rely on the mulish Captain and the ship’s doctor for help. He writes letters to Troy to give him space for rumination. The passengers are a nice collection of sly riffs on stereotypes. Romance blossoms (Marsh has a soft spot for young lovers). Freudian theories of childhood trauma’s effects on adult neuroses explain the murderer’s motives, but that doesn’t reduce the pleasure of re-reading this book. Marsh is a novelist who uses the crime genre to muse on the comedie humaine. Thus one’s average for her, which makes it a *** .

 

Ngaio Marsh. False Scent (1960) Another of Marsh’s theatrical excursions. Mary Bellamy, a narcissistic actress, who occupies the centre of her world and hence, she believes, of the Universe, is the victim. She’s of course made more than enough enemies, so Alleyn and Fox’s task is that of removing the innocents cluttering the path to the solution.
     A beautifully complex network of family, personal, business and professional relationships, and the usual withholding of essential information delay the investigation, and also mislead the reader (me). As so often in Marsh’s work, an obsession provides the motive. A satisfying read. ***