Artists in Crime

This novel, which relates the first meeting between Scotland Yard Inspector Roderick Alleyn and the artist Agatha Troy, is both a good mystery and a good picture of what kind of book was popular in the 1930s. After Alleyn and Troy meet on a ship sailing back to England from the South Pacific (and they do not meet well, although he is interested in her), Alleyn is called to investigate a murder at Troy's home conveniently down the road from his mother's. An artist's model has been murdered, and there is literally a cast of suspects who had the motivation to `do her in', including Troy herself. The plot is pretty procedural, although the identity of the murderer is kept hidden for quite awhile. The great thing is the language and style of the novel: slang terms, endearments, and descriptions of people are wonderfully appropriate to the time in which the novel first appeared. The relationship between Alleyn and his mother could not be written `straight' today: the `darlings' and `mammas' would be a joke in the 21st century, especially since Alleyn is not a young man at this point. Troy and Alleyn's misunderstandings, and the rather melodramatic `Epilogue in a Garden' is fun to read and would have played well to the original readers; it's full of dramatic tension and yet a little silly at the same time. Better than most modern mysteries.

I generally don't read much narrative prose, but I do enjoy a good murder mystery, especially of the old "who dunnit" genre. This is certainly one of those. Marsh is a superb teller of tales, creating colorful characters with a greater sense of depth and motivation than does Christie, with whom she was contemporary. She shares with Christie that unfailable ability to devise an unusual end for the victim and a strict adherence to the "rules" of genre--they don't cheat by some manipulation of their plot to make it virtually impossible to find the solution--something about which the writers of the Ellery Queen series, for instance, were not always scrupulous. I find myself satisfied at the end that I was truely fooled, not simply bamboozled, when I read Marsh, and this book was no exception. I also find that I learn something from Marsh: information about social attitudes--some of those expressed in the 30's sounded very familiar--about the theater, about the world in general. This one was especially satisfying in that I had a small bit of arcane knowledge at my disposal that helped me solve the mystery. Instead of feeling the solution was too easy, I could congratulate myself on being aware of oddities and of having a broad background of experiences and knowledge. For the reader who enjoys a "vacation" and a "trip abroad" and into the past, this is certainly the book for you. I enjoyed my trip; "book" yours!

A well written murder mystery. If you love Martha Grimes, you will love Ngaio Marsh. The author throws the reader into the art culture of the 1930's England and adds a murder to capture interest into the book. With careful reading and logic, you care solve the mystery too. If you get confused during the story, Ngaio Marsh places several summaries of the clues within the story. The murder mystery is a delight to read from begining to end.