Gain Your Copy Hand In Glove Assembled By Ngaio Marsh Available Through Digital Format
the audiobook narrated by Jeremy Sinden
This is a charming, perplexing mystery in a small village with lots of interesting suspects, Written in thes, it is one of Marshs better latecareer books, Back to reading Alleyn. When I see the cast of characters listed in the front, I like to figure who will be the newly in love couple, Lol. I know right away theyre innocent! Many characters to detest in this mystery, as always, Nice escapism. This was my first Marsh, or perhaps my second,
Parts of it seem dreadfully dated, don'tcha know, and others quite modern, Marsh was older than my grandmother, and I am not young Marsh would have beenwhen this came out, "The writing style!" he ejaculated, "So many verbs that modern authors use more rarely," he exclaimed,
Annoying dogs. Gloves. The condolence notes. A Really Important Cigarette Case that made the Maltese Falcon look like a trifle, Endless references to all four, The plot might have been OK if this novella hadn't been padded to novel length by all the repetition of the above, Although the notes are a rather obvious contrivance, not far from the old switchedbriefcase clunker,
Mostly annoying characters, A couple of REALLY annoying characters, I hope it was intentional,
This is balanced by a considerable amount of what we now call snark from the author, I enjoyed that part.
My Aeonian Press edition had two pairs of blank facing pages that is, four pages that were where they should have been but had no words on them.
Another page had a graphic, filling the bottom half of a page it cut off a sentence that resumed at the top of the next page as if nothing had happened.
I'm glad I read this, and I'm glad I now know Inspector Alleyn, But I won't seek another,
Maybe I'll see how Lord Peter Wimsey has held up over time, April Fool's Day seems to Lady Bantling to be the perfect time to throw a scavenger hunt dinner party, Known for her outrageous parties, she goes all out, sending her guests on a villagewide hunt for rhyming clues that will lead them to the grand prizea magnum of champagne.
But the festivities come to a disagreeable end when Mr, Harold Cartell is found dead face down in a drainage ditch the next morning, A drainage ditch that was the site for one of the clues, Superintendent Alleyn and company are called in right away so the trail is fresh and the evidence such as it is as undisturbed as possible,
The question Alleyn will have to answer is whose hands were in the gloves that set a fatal booby for the disagreeable elderly lawyer Mr, Cartell Leading up to the fateful night, there are all sorts of relationship troubles, The sweet but snobbish bachelor Mr, Pyke Period has been forced by postwar circumstances to share his lodgings with the prickly Mr, Cartell. It causes all sorts of domestic upheavals from unexpected dare I say unwanted extra guests at meal times to the outrageous antics of Cartell's disagreeable dog Pixie to Cartell's indelicate references to Period's claims of ancestry.
But has Mr. Period's life been disrupted enough to cause him feel murderous towards his housemate
Then there's Cartell's relationship to his sister Conniea childless woman who has taken an unaccountable fancy to a "poor orphan girl" ofor so, mind you and is willing to turn a blind eye to anything Moppet what a nickname and her disreputable boyfriend might get up to.
When it becomes apparent that Leonard said boyfriend is a thief and a man out to con a local garage man out of a fancy car, Cartell lowers the boom.
Connie must disentangle Moppet from her boyfriend or Moppet and Leonard will face the police, Would Connie kill her brother over a girl who's no relation Would Moppet and/or Leonard kill to prevent a more minor runin with the police
We mustn't forget Lady Desiree Bantling and her delightful key sarcasm font third husband Bimbo who is not Lord Bantling.
Bimbo was mixed up in some unsavory doings at a club in London, Would he kill over that ancient history Or are there more recent doings to cover up Nor should we overlook Lady Bantling's son, Andrew, Cartell and Period are the trustees of Lord Bantling's will and Andrew has had a fairly heated argument with the lawyer over his future plans, Andrew paints rather well according to Troy Alleyn who should know and wants an advance on his trust funds to start his own gallery, Cartell refuses to consider such "nonsense" and insists that the young man stay in the Guards and stick to a proper job, Would Andrew kill for his dreams or would his mother kill to help her son
Warning: A few spoilery bits in my observations below,
and/.
First posted on my blog sitelinkMy Reader's Block, Please request permission before reposting any review content, Thanks. It's never possible to read just one Ngaio Marsh, is it
I finished Dead Water and pretty much immediately picked up Hand in Glove, A really satisfying mystery with an interesting cast, A really strong, satisfying solution, A fairly template Marsh story long build up getting to know the semiaristocratic families, relatively mundane murder and then Alleyns unravelling of murderer and motive,
Marshs writing here is as good as ever, witty, lighthearted at times and observant of human nature, That said, I found the buildup not as skilfully executed as usual and verging on irritatingly slow at times, For the half a book before the murder, you could tell exactly who the victim was going to be by the gradual building of motive against him by pretty much every other character.
Dont get me wrong, an enjoyable read but not a classic, For some reason this was not as satisfying as most of the Alleyn books, It may have been the characters, only one or two of which were really likeable, although that is not always a disappointment, Percival Pyke Period what a name! is sharing the house with a lawyer, Henry Cartell, who owns a very obnoxious dog, Henry's sister also lives nearby she has a very obnoxious ward called Moppett, on whom she dotes, One of Period's quirks is writing condolence letters to people who have lost someone, He is also writing an etiquette book and hires young Nicola to help him get his notes in order, Another friend, Lady Bantling, also lives nearby, She gives a party that includes a 'treasure hunt' with clues, and Moppett and her objectionable boyfriend contrive to get themselves invited, When a body is discovered in a drainage ditch near Period's house, suspicion falls on several people, and it takes Inspector Alleyn to figure it out, An interesting reread, but not as riveting as some of Marsh's mysteries, Who had a hand in the murder of a country gent
All manner of friction fills the English country house shared by genteel retiree Percival Pyke Period and fuddyduddy lawyer Harry Cartell.
Until one of them, after a flamboyant dowager's treasure hunt party, is found murderedface down in the mire of an open drain, Which of Superintendent Roderick Alleyn's suspectslinked by a tangled set of relationshipswore a crucial, missing pair of gloves to commit this dirty deed
It was hard to not want to start singing The Smith's song Hand in Glove every time I picked up the book, haha.
Enjoyable mystery. Love the Inspector Alleyn series, The early's setting was fun, DNF
firstpages were fun but lost me as soon as the murder occurred and investigation started, might pick back up someday, but not likely, This is another Inspector Alleyn mystery, more or less set in a country house, with a cast
of overthetop society characters, Published in, it's set in thes, However, except
for one or two internal references, the story could just as well be set in thes, It's a
competent mystery but didn't engage me, not least because one of Marsh's writing ticsusing the verb "ejaculate" instead of "exclaim" or the equivalent, over and over againgot to be very annoying very soon.
.stars. It had a veeeery slow start, By the time the investigation started the book was already almost half over, I will say, once the clues started coming together it was quite enjoyable, but I personally didn't like almost any of the characters and didn't find the detective himself to be that sympathetic.
I have another one of Ngiao Marsh's books on my bookshelf and I'm definitely going to read it, but it wasn't quite the mystery fix that I was looking for To my mind Ngaio Marsh is the author whose books are closest to Agatha Christie's.
In some ways they're better, as she develops her MC's life along in the series, and her people don't feel as stereotyped, This is one of my personal favorites, The characters are interesting and varied, all a little flawed but mostly ordinary folks you might know, The plot moves well and the ending might surprise the reader, If not, it was still a fun read,
You don't have to read the books in order, but I like to sometimes, so I can watch Alleyn's life change as things proceed, I read this book for theReading Challenge Week: a book with an ensemble cast,
This book has it all: a handsome detective, an innocent young woman, a pretender, a gobythebook lawyer, a flamboyant society dame, two obnoxious hangerson, Oh, Moppet and her ne'er do well boyfriend are most certainly in the frame for murder or was it the butler These classic, golden age mysteries keep one on one's toes and even then, you will probably get it wrong.
However, the atmosphere is delightful, I thought the butler did it, He didn't.
Roderick Allen Series, Book, HBB,, read, Fiction, Mystery, England. Although this is thend book in the series, it was the first that I have read in this series, or by this author, I happened to find it on an old bookshelf at our family summer cottage, and recalled that Marsh was a favorite author of sisterinlaw's, Lots of suspects, lots of query characters, lots of twist and turns, Set in a small British village,'s Good. If I come across more, I would read them! This is thend in the Roderick Alleyn series, published in, Having been working my way through this series, I have had mixed reactions to some of the books, As such, it was good to find one that I got utterly engrossed in and read in a day it has been a while since that has happened and reminds me why I so love reading.
We begin with a young lady, called Nicola friend of Alleyn and Agatha Troy who is going to do some typing for a fussy old man, called Percival Pyke Period, who shares his house with a retired lawyer, called Harry Cartell.
On the train journey, Nicola meets Cartells stepson, Andrew Bantling, a young man who wants to give up the Guards to buy an art gallery and, of course, falls heavily for Nicola.
This is set in a small village, with a group of people who are all related, We have Andrews mother, Lady Bantling, and her third husband, Bimbo there are some gloriously Thirties names in this mystery, Also, Cartells sister, Connie, and her ward, Moppet and her boyfriend, the rather frowned upon, Leonard Leese, Leonard is known to the police, as the expression says, With his colourful clothes, constant whistling and slang terms, he causes consternation in the village and trouble between Mr Period and Mr Cartell especially when a cigarette case goes missing.
Although set in the early Sixties not quite swinging just yet, although the Beatles first single would be released later in the year, this reads as though it is set in the Fifties.
Jeans appear, as does a Jazz record and one suspect is watching the telly, but we still have a healthy dose of snobbery, the sense of belonging to the right people, with the correct behaviour, and a good array of servants perhaps a little more modern, but still deferential and caring, with the automatic, thank YOU, Sir, dropping from Mr Periods manservant.
A fun, interesting read, with a dose of comedy and a sense that Ngaio Marsh was not ready to give up, as she reached a new decade,
: Repeat, latenight, listen. I enjoyed revisiting this Ngaio Marsh mystery and this is the first time Ive noticed that Marsh once again uses a wound on a finger as a key to solving the case the other time is in Overture to Death
Extra: abusive relationship.
That's right. And the Moppet's boyfriend, Mr, Leonard Leiss. And of course, Mr. Period. So we have the piquant situation of a lady with two husbands, a young man with two stepfathers and a brother and sister with a courtesy niece, How did the party go,