Customer Reviews

Singing in the Shrouds

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In NgaioMarsh's "Singing in the Shrouds", dependable New Scotland Yard detective Roderick Alleyn is going on a cruise -- but not a vacation. Sent in secret to prove his hunch that a murderer is on the Cape Farewell, a cargo ship sailing to South Africa via Portugal, Alleyn meets up with an intriguing list of characters, most of whom could be legitimate subjects. All he has to go on is a scrap of paper in the last victim's hand -- an embarkation note -- and the murderer's predilection for singing and leaving a certain flower on the victim after the murder is completed. There are other clues, one of which I didn't get until the end, which point to the eventual culprit, but as always, Marsh delivers a wonderful analysis of character as well as a good plot. There's also humor and an interesting portrayal of some sexuality issues that are interesting to read in a book originally published in 1958. A good escape into a different time.

Clues point to a serial murderer being aboard a cargo ship bound for South Africa. Inspector Alleyn is sent to join the ship on its voyage south. It carries nine passengers in addition to the crew.

The cast of characters are vividly drawn and Ms. Marsh does a wonderful job in making us switch our suspicion from one character to the next. As with most mysteries of this sort, much of the fun comes from the interplay between the characters as opposed to the mystery itself.

As always, Marsh provides us with the necessary clues to guess the murderer. If you pay close attention, you may figure out the solution within the first half of the novel. A drawback here, is that the list of the possible guilty parties is narrowed rather early on. Part of this is, however, made up for by trying to perceive who the next victim will be.

Something has been made about the character of a gay character. I've always thought that it is somewhat dangerous to attempt to place the latest views of morality/society upon works of fiction written in the past. Was Ms. Marsh prejudiced against homosexuals, or was she portraying the reality of her day? One could easily interpret that the unfavourable characteristics of the character may have arisen from the need to hide their sexuality. Also, because of its role in the outcome of the mystery, its uncertain as to what could have been changed and still keep the mystery intact. Finally, in regard to how gay characters are treated by other characters in the novel, it seems more likely that they would have suffered prejudice, etc., rather than open acceptance and celebration of their sexual preferences.

Practically the whole novel takes place aboard an ocean liner headed from the UK to South Africa.

The idea of a crazed sex killer doesn't appeal to me - I like a murderer with a specific financial or emotional motive.

The setting was rather claustrophobic - same characters page after page.

There is plenty of homophobia to go around in this one - all of it quite subtle!

The whole atmosphere of the novel was rather humid and sexual. I prefer the dreary English villages and the correspondingly repressed characters. So much more interesting to read about!

The friend who loaned me this book did, and could not relax the entire time. Pretty understandable, when the premise of the novel is that there is a notorious serial killer on board a cruise ship who has an obsession with women, costume jewelry and hyacinths. Marsh's characters are all very-well drawn (at one point I almost wanted to kick the ship's captain) and the plot is flawless, with an interesting psychological angle to it.

I shall not repeat what was previously written in editorial & prior reviewer comments. IMHO this is another fine Superintendent Alleyn mystery (but without his usual supporting cast) held mainly on a ship at sea--mildly reminiscent of the river boat journey in Clutch of Constables (Roderick Alleyn Mysteries) & referencing the voyage in which Alleyn met his future wife Troy (see Alleyn and Others: The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh (Library of Crime Classics)). In this one, Marsh does provide the reader with subtle but sufficient clues to determine the culprit, but also interjects some clever activities by both suspects & Alleyn during the cruise. As usual, Marsh provides some intriguing dialog & witticisms including: "She exhales unhappiness," "spiritual striptease session," "spiritual policeman," "When one is looking for peculiar behavior one seems to see it all over the place," & in the naming of the sour & egoistic "Mr. Merryman" (hardly a good conscript for Robin Hood)! Unfortunately, she annoyingly laces the book with a number of Latin phrases not in either of my two phrase books. Overall, I think it's one of her better mysteries. It is included, with False Scent (Roderick Alleyn Mysteries) & Scales of Justice in an anthology--Another Three-Act Special: False Scent, Scales of Justice, Singing in the Shrouds.

Others have commented on the disparaging treatment of the camp, gay steward. Another of the characters is obviously a lesbian, and she is sympathetically written up except that the passengers comment rudely on her "ugliness". She is a foil, though, to the Nice Young Girl Jemima and the wonderful Mrs Dillington Blick (imagine Diana Dors in her heyday). An interesting touch is to have a priest and a psychiatrist discuss the mind of the murderer. Of the two, I'd take the priest's demonic possession over the doc's 50s Freudianism. If you enjoyed this voyage, read Marsh's Clutch of Constables.

When Scotland Yard has reason to believe London's latest serial killer has set sail on a small luxury liner, Inspector Allen is quickly dispatched to perform an investigation en-route. The result is one of Marsh's more tightly plotted novels with enough twists to keep you guessing all the way to the end. Unfortunately, it is also the Marsh novel most likely to offend modern readers.

Marsh is particularly noted for her ability to create well-rounded, convincing characters... but there is an exception: on the rare occasions when she deals with either implicitly or obviously gay characters, she inevitably characterizes them as slimy, dismissable, and unlikable--and even Inspector Allen, who is inevitably polite to one and all, feels free to behave toward them in the most obnoxious manner imaginable.

Marsh's tendency toward homosexual hysteria is noticeable in DEATH IN ECASTY and PHOTO FINISH, but it is particularly obvious here, and it is so powerful that it renders an otherwise wonderful bit of writing progressively distasteful. Marsh is among my favorite mystery writers, and I did read the book to the end--but it was not a book that I kept on my shelf afterward.

Ngaio Marsh does not fail in this delightfully captivating mystery