Monday, August 26, 2019

Ngaio Marsh' Overture To Death (#20BooksOfSummer)

Overture to Death (1939) is a classic village mystery from the golden age: there's Jernigham, the master of the local manor house; his son; Copeland, a rather high Anglican rector; his daughter; the village doctor; the husbandless Mrs. Ross; and two absolutely impossible (but amusing!) spinsters.

You know what happens to the son and daughter, of course...

It's one of the spinsters who gets murdered, though there's a question if the other one was the target. The event takes place an amateur theatrical performance for the benefit of the local church. Miss Campanula sits down to play the piano for the overture, and well, consider the title.

I found this one very amusing; the two spinsters and their rivalry was very deftly handled, very amusing. The lovers were believably plagued. Marsh knows her theatre and her writing on casting and rehearsals was hilarious and altogether believable. The list of possible suspects was small and it was pretty clear who had done it, but the cluing was very well done.

Marsh wrote thirty-three mysteries involving her detective Roderick Alleyn and I've read ten or so; this jumped to the top of the list of those I've read, and the interwebs (at least in the form of the late mystery blogger Noah Stewart) seem to agree. Recommended!

An entry in the Just The Facts mystery challenge hosted by Bev at My Readers' Block.

Golden Age. When. During a performance of any sort.


6 comments:

  1. This sounds pretty intriguing and satisfying. Mystery is the one genre where I generally don't get tired of the tropes.

    I need to pry myself away from my Agatha Christie comfort reads and get back to others, like Ngaio Marsh. I've only read on from her before. I also want to try Margery Allingham some time.

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    1. Agatha Christie is pretty amazing, of course...

      I don't mind the conventions in mysteries--it's often interesting to see what they do with them--but in any case it's comforting to have a recognizable problem solved by the end of the book.

      Margery Allingham is one I want to explore, too. I've read one & liked it, but that's it.

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  2. This is an author I really need to try!

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    1. And right now I'd say this is the one to try...

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  3. Whenever you post a view of your detective notebook, it makes me smile. :)

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    1. Good! Though I'm not responsible for the creation of the card, or even the idea of checking the boxes...

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