Customer Reviews

A Man Lay Dead (Dead Letter Mysteries)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not my favorite Ngaio Marsh novel. One of the things I like about her later books is where they break from the more classic chamber mystery form. This, her first book, (while still being very readable and enjoyable) is much more in the line of the tried and true formula. The characters are, as always, interesting and well-drawn; the red herrings are sufficiently misleading. Solid all the way around.

In 1934 Ngaio Marsh gave us the first of a series which for lovers of the English cozy deserves to be known better than I think it is. This, the first in the series gets things off to a great start. True, this may not be Ms. Marsh's best crafted pure mystery; she got better with time and the plot here is so much a paradigm for the genre that it is at least now a cliche. But Roderick Alleyn arrives on the scene as an interesting and believable centerpiece with enough of an enigma about him to make us want to know more. I have read a half dozen others before coming to this one but wish I had started here.

Until now, I had never read anything by New Zealander Ngaio Marsh. Shall I ever again? Well, yes, especially when I feel in the mood for a `classic cozy'; and I mean that quite literally. This is Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's first mystery. He has to be the most shrewdly charismatic of all the sleuths created during the Golden Era of mystery. In its most classic sense, "A man lay dead" takes place at an English country house. A party of five guests arrives for a weekend at Frantock, Sir Hubert Handesley's residence. Quite the tycoon, Handesley distinguishes himself in party planning and antique weapon collecting. One of his guests, Charles Rankin, brings with him not only his dull journalist cousin; but also a very old (and priceless) dagger of Mongolian origin. Upon perusal by Sir Handesley and the other guests during cocktails, the weapon appears to have a bloody past: it is believed to have been savagely used by some secret Russian organizations during the time of the Bolshevik revolts. Needless to say, after seeing the specimen Sir Hubert's mouth waters, his Russian butler disappears mysteriously, his only Russian guest, a Dr. Tokareff, starts acting weirdly then ever; and... Charles Rankin is stabbed in the back with the weapon during `The Murder Game', which was supposed to be the entertainment of the weekend. Thus, the innocently planned party becomes quite eerie, its guests more tense than ever; even though they all appear to have cast-iron alibis.

This first novel is somewhat general at times, but two thirds into it, I couldn't put it down. I found ingenious the way Marsh would not give away whodunit right up to the last two or three pages in the book. Alleyn keeps everyone on their toes during a constant guessing game, and even though at times he may appear disconcerting to everyone else involved - including the reader - he is very much in control of his ideas, suave as ever. I did find, however, that the Russian element in the story was pushed a bit too much. Even though the dagger does have a bloody past, it has really nothing to do in the end with the actual solving of the crime. In bringing on a complicated background of Russian espionage, Marsh confuses the reader with so many new characters and plot twists. In the end, it all goes back to the beginning - literally - to Frantock, where Alleyn, in a most dramatic display of his powers of persuasion, taunts the murderer into self discovery. I very much enjoyed reading the descriptions of the English country settings and the way the game is planned - perhaps I shall try it for my next party? No dagger, mind you - and I look forward to more Inspector Alleyn mysteries, where, due to Marsh's love of the theater; everything has quite a dramatic development.

A Man Lay Dead is the first appearance of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Alleyn is Ngaio Marsh's "handsome" creation who went on to star in over 30 novels and short stories. Marsh has often been overlooked in the mystery genre, but in my opinion she is one of the very best. Her wit, characters, and tight story-telling make all of her books very enjoyable to read. The murder may seem to be a little difficult to solve yourself, but as you get used to Marsh's tools and style, you quickly catch on and start to think like her hero. I highly recommend this book as a great introduction to Marsh's wonderful world.

"A Man Lay Dead" is a tight, well-written, and fun little murder mystery. It isn't a very long book, and reads quite fast, so it serves its purpose well as a quick and cozy get-a-way to 1930s England and the crime that seemed to run rampant there in the world of detective fiction.

The set-up is deliciously wicked. A group of people gather at an old country estate for a game of Murder. Someone is secretly selected to play the murderer, and then at some point during the weekend has to pick a person to kill (not for real, of course). Well, someone takes the play-acting a little too far, and a man does, indeed, end up laying dead.

The characters are delightful representations of 1930's stock murder suspects, and they are all well-drawn by the author. The protagonist, Detective-Inspector Alleyn, is quite an "all-business" kind of man, but his character develops remarkably, and naturally, well as the story unfolds. Some of the tedious things he does early-on make sense by book's end.

This was a very enjoyable mystery. I only deduct one star due to its rather superfluous nature (it's not a classic of the genre, or anything), however, in my opinion, it does everything a detective story should, and in the best possible way.

Short, sweet, and highly entertaining.

This novel is an excellent starting place to the wonderful world of Alleyn and Ngaio Marsh. The murder takes place in an Enlgish country house, and the entertaining world of the country house murder is very skillfully portrayed. This novel also introduces us to Nigel Bathgate, a guest at the party who reappears in many early Marsh mysteries. This novel has a very light, playful tone compared to some of her later mysteries.

Ngaio (Nye-O) Marsh is by far the greatest mystery writer to grace this earth. In this, her first book, she introduces her detective, Roderick Alleyn. Her attention to detail, incredible ability to describe the minutae of her locales, and willingness to provide the reader with all necessary information to solve the mystery (and still make it very difficult to do so) are just a few of attributes. If you only read one Marsh, make it "A Man Lay Dead."

This is a great introduction to a delightful series set in the classic English manor house.. Marsh takes her reader along not letting one know the "how" and "who" under the last few pages. It's the beginning of a wonderful friendship between Alleyn and journalist Nigel Bathgate. The series definitely improves over time, but I always like to begin at the beginning. Personally, I prefer Marsh to Christie; maybe because I'm a procedurals fan. Whatever your preference, there are interesting characters, effective red herrings, the classic reveal all of which result in a very satisfying read.

which doesn't mean that you shouldn't read it, since even Marsh's books that aren't quite up to the mark are still very good reads. I found the method of murder to be a little too clever for something that was not necessarily premeditated. Everything else, though, characters, motives, weapon, etc. are in perfect order. AND you get to meet the much-featured minor character Nigel Bathgate, the gentleman-journalist who comes closest to what one might call Inpector Alleyn's Watson.

When beginning to read a series that unfolds various episodes in the lives of a group of characters, even in mystery series where the individual books are stand-alone works, one often wants to begin at the beginning. A MAN LAY DEAD, however, is an instance of a book not only at the beginning of a series, but at the beginning of its author's career, when Marsh was still experimenting with the craft of writing mysteries as well as working out how best to deploy her chief investigative character, Alleyn of Scotland Yard. (His rank varies over the course of the series, but here he's already rather distinguished and in his very late thirties or early forties. He's a character who will not age much over the next fifty years of his career.)

The basic plot of A MAN LAY DEAD is fairly simple - Nigel Bathgate, a young reporter, is accompanying his well-off cousin Charles Rankin to a country house party, wherein the main entertainment of the weekend is to be a Murder Game (which, of course, features a real corpse sooner rather than later). Since the local police force is fairly small and has a few people off sick, they promptly turn the case over to the Yard, and Alleyn takes over the investigation. (The fact that some of the chief suspects ordinarily live in London doesn't seem to be a factor.) Bathgate is essentially the viewpoint character throughout, without use of Alleyn's point of view as in later books, and Marsh introduces some rather strained bits of business at times to ensure that Bathgate can be an eyewitness to parts of the investigation that realistically he should never have been allowed to see, let alone participate in. Alleyn is an interesting but rather remote figure in this story.

The country house setting has about a dozen servants looking after a household whose official residents total two, as far as I can tell: Sir Hubert (a fanatical weapons collector with a hobby of giving parties) and his niece Angela, who is Bathgate's romantic interest. She's a demonic driver, and looks very good indeed compared to the female guests, who are both hangers-on of Nigel's cousin in one way or another. The other members of the house party generally give an impression of being stuffy and/or affected at first sight, while few of the servants have many scenes. Marsh in later years tended to develop supporting players more than she does here.

Considered as a puzzle, the story has at least one weakness, which is that Alleyn has information about the motives of some of the suspects that isn't given to the reader. However, since the evidence about *how* the crime was committed and of the characters' movements is provided, the reader has enough to work with to attempt a solution.

Considered in terms of portraying a police investigation, I don't think Marsh has been particularly realistic. On the one hand, Alleyn effectively puts the entire house party under house arrest by instructing them not to leave the house until the inquest (not, for example, just making themselves appropriately available), while on the other hand, the house isn't properly locked down and one of the servants manages to get away completely (and doesn't seem to face any consequences for having fled the scene once he *is* located). Alleyn messes around with forensic work rather than letting his fingerprint expert just do his job and *ask* for everyone's fingerprints, but on the other hand abets some illegal search and seizure at another point. As well as the standard reenactment of the crime/confront the murderer scene, Alleyn involves civilians unnecessarily in another bit of hunting with live bait that goes badly wrong.

In terms of human interest that turns this into a story rather than a simple puzzle - and supplies red herrings where necessary - I *had* thought Marsh's second book, ENTER A MURDERER, was overly melodramatic in spots. I spoke without having completed *this* book, which combines some fairly believable personal relationships with incidents that try the reader's credulity. One amazing subplot - "amazing" as a descriptive, not a compliment - is that the murder weapon is a symbolic weapon of a Russian secret society. The reason I'm not being complimentary about this is that the society is introduced without really being made to earn its way - it could've been really interesting and colourful but fell flat. Marsh doesn't seem to have put much effort into consistently working out what she *did* use with it - it's a "Russian" society, but uses Mongolian weaponry and the first member of the society we learn about is Polish, without any sense of how all those elements are supposed to fit together. This kind of undeveloped gimmick isn't at all typical of what I've read of Marsh's later work, so if a reader began with this book, the reader might get a very inaccurate impression of her typical style.

Drive-in totals:
- Three love affairs, at least one including the viewpoint character.
- One secret society with ceremonial sacred weapons and some torture.
- One kidnapping episode.
- Some rather prejudiced attitudes among the characters (mostly anti-foreign sentiment), with one noticeable ethnic slur.