Customer Reviews

Vintage Murder (The Crime Club)

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

 

 

Roderick Alleyn of New Scotland Yard is visiting New Zealand on holiday for health reasons in 1937 - a very long journey in distance, then and now, and in those days by sea voyage. He'll be away from Fox, Bailey, Thompson, and the rest of his team for quite a while - more than 3 months in New Zealand itself. The story opens during a long train trip across South Island with some of his fellow passengers from the ship - the Carolyn Dacres English Comedy Company.

Ms. Dacres is the sparkling leading lady; her middle-aged, humdrum husband, Alfred Meyer, runs the business end of the company. Hailey Hambledon, Carolyn's handsome leading man, wants her to arrange a divorce with Meyer and marry him. Carolyn refuses, claiming religious scruples; it's hard to say if Carolyn loves Hailey, or is merely being diplomatic. Some of the character actors have been gambling heavily. Valerie Ganes, a mediocre actress (a dilettante with a rich father) suffered the loss of a large amount of cash, but isn't keen on even a quasi-official investigation. Meyer's business partner, Mason, seems habitually worried about money.

Meyer *seems* oblivious to all this, and after a successful run in Middleton (fictional city), arranges an elaborate birthday party for Carolyn, with an eye toward publicity, and including a flashy gimmick of lowering a huge champagne bottle from the rafters. But someone apparently decides to launch a venture by aiming the bottle at Meyer's head.

At this point in his career, Alleyn had only had one murder case entangled with the world of the theatre - _Enter a Murderer_, which occurred 2 years before this story opens - so the matter of the earlier case (and the name of the murderer) are mentioned several times. In fact, a character actress in the company was a minor character in the earlier book. While one can enjoy and follow the plot of _Vintage Murder_ without having read the earlier story, it has added depth after reading the earlier book - and if they're read out of order, the solution of the earlier book is given in the 1st chapter of this book.

While this is only the second 'theatrical' case Alleyn investigated, several more were to come, and other changes took place shortly after the events in this book. Taking ship for the return journey to England as _Artists in Crime_, the next book, opened, Alleyn was to meet Agatha Troy for the first time. :)

Published in 1937, VINTAGE MURDER is the first of several novels in which Ngaio Marsh sends Inspector Alleyn to her homeland of New Zealand--and, not unexpectedly, with lethal results.

Alleyn travels by train in the company of Carolyn Dacres, celebrated actress, and her theatrical company, and when a possible assault and a curious robbery plague the company en route they turn to him help. Unfortunately, however, these incidents prove so much prelude, and a party following the company's opening night in Middleton proves deadly indeed.

Marsh is particularly well known for creating remarkably credible characters, and certainly such creations as Carolyn Dacres, St. John Ackroyd, Francis Liverslidge, Dr. Te Pokiha, and Bob Parsons prove her talents; on this occasion, however, she does not quite manage to extend those talents to the entire cast, and in certain instances I found it a bit difficult to tell one individual from the other, something very unusual for a Marsh novel. In any case, her sense of location is as powerful in VINTAGE MURDER as it is in the very best of her works, and her means of murder is classic Marsh, something that would be totally unbelievable in any context except the one she creates.

Final thoughts on the book: while not quite in the same class as OVERTURE TO DEATH, NIGHT AT THE VULCAN, BLACK AS HE'S PAINTED, and DEAD WATER, VINTAGE MURDER is nonetheless a truly enjoyable work, sure to please both old fans and newcomers alike.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This one is mixed, though let me say from the outset, it's worth reading.

The bad, or at least not-so-good?

The center of this mystery drains your energy, possibly in part because of the almost Tolstoyesque proliferation of characters - almost, because nobody in this novel has a half-dozen nicknames you have to keep straight. There is also a heavy and almost repetitive ladling of timetables and alibis that a more stringent editor might have pared down.

Too, you might get a bit tired of the way the New Zealand police force sucks up to Alleyn, especially since he seems never to be wholly on top of his form. (As another reviewer says, except in one letter from Alleyn, there's no Fox to act as an intelligent sounding board. When at his boss's side, Fox serves to reveal Alleyn's sharpness, and without Fox, much of that sharpness can't surface.)

The good side?

There are moments that bring the story to life. Amazon and the publisher have enabled the "search in this book" feature above: search on `fascination train' without the single quotes and read the page. Late-night, cross-country passenger train rides are rare in my country, the US, but I've been on a couple, and Marsh clearly has captured the essence.

Plus, the backstage world is well depicted - you get to see a little about how the technical side of theater lives and breathes. The novel revolves around a fabricated tech "accident" and there's a bit of foreshadowing that brings depth to a later statement, "when men are working aloft. I remember the stage-manager told me the [stage] hands always have their tools tied to their wrists." The reality of backstage is that when everything is perfect, nobody really notices - and when something goes awry, the stagehands could not feel worse.

There is also a crystal moment between Alleyn and Carolyn Dacres, a picnic excursion that the smitten Alleyn orchestrates to soften the usual grilling session. Here, Marsh expresses both the essential goodness (and grief) of the actress and the essential attraction of the New Zealand back country.

There are also memorably complex characters. Is it coincidence that surname of the Oxford-educated Maori physician, Dr. Rangi Te Pokiha, is about as close as you can get to "paheka," the Maori name for European settlers on the ranges of their land? And don't miss St. John Ackroyd, the acrid comedian.

And the last lines of the book, quoting a letter from Miss Dacres to Alleyn sent to him after all has been said and done, presents a touchingly human denouement.

I guess this is a roundabout way of saying, all Marsh is good; some are better than this; but this has fine moments.

Scotland Yard's Inspector Alleyn cannot take a holiday without falling into a murder investigation. While vacationing in New Zealand Alleyn finds himself investigating the death of a theater company magnate. During a birthday celebration for his leading-lady wife Alfred Meyer is killed by a hurtling magnum of champagne, falling from the eaves of the theater. Finding the killer seems impossible; many had motive, but no one seems to have had the opportunity. Alleyn steps in to help the local police investigate.

While I generally enjoy this sort of murder mystery, this one was rather ponderous. So much of the investigation relies on highly technical measurements: exactly how was the bottle rigged, where was the ladder placed, and so on. The book also features a large cast of characters, most of whom are entirely uninteresting. I had a hard time keeping track of all of the characters, and I didn't particularly care about most of them. There's also the issue of Marsh's somewhat racist treatment of native New Zealanders. I will likely try another Inspector Alleyn mystery, but I will look for one outside of a theatrical setting.

A good read, but I miss the comraderie and banter that goes on between Inspectors Alleyn and Fox, as well as the fingerprint and photography experts, Bailey and Thompson. It's strange, because I didn't feel the same way about _When in Rome_, where Alleyn is traveling outside of England, and therefore is without his usual force. Anyway, it's still a good read. Once again, the theatre becomes the stage for a murder, when a carefully timed birthday gag goes wrong and ends up killing someone who doesn't seem to have an enemy in the world. Taking place in New Zealand, Marsh gives the reader a good introduction to her native country.

I was so anxious to get his book, and I was delighted with the condition when I received it. It is just like a new book, and the delivery was swift - I would definitely buy from this seller again.