Enter a Murderer

First Sentence: On May 25th Arthur Surbonadier, whose real name was Arthur Simes, went to visit his uncle, Jacob Saint, whose real name was Jacob Simes.

When Inspector Roderick Alleyn accepts an invitation to the theater from his friend, newspaper journalist Nigen Bathgate, he doesn't expect to be witness to a murder. During a scene in the play, actors Arthur Surbonadier and Felix Gardner struggle over a gun.

The gun had been loaded by Arthur but, in the struggle, fired by Felix and Arthur dies. Unfortunately, the planned blanks were live and the stage death is real. The question is, was it murder or suicide? Who exchanged out the blanks?

It is a delight to read Ngaio Marsh right from the first page. It is a wonderful period; during the Industrial Revolution and between the wars. Police inspectors were highly educated; in this case an Oxford man. I always love the literary and historical references Alleyn uses in his conversations.

Even for the period, however, the dialogue does seem a bit stilted to me. I am always amused by Alleyn's irreverence and apparent facetious manner. The lack of expletives is refreshing: "Props uttered a few well-chosen and highly illuminating words. "He was" were the only two of them that were printable." I was also amused when a character would be mentioned but you were immediately advised that character was not germane to the story.

In today's world, you would never find a detective using a journalist to do their investigative work but a confrontation between Alleyn and Bathgate was effective in legitimizing their working together.

It is plot that drove the story; who did it, how and why? It is a bit frustrating knowing that the author holds back information from the reader until the final confrontation.

Nonetheless, I always enjoy rereading the Golden Age authors and Marsh in particular.

First Sentence: On May 25th Arthur Surbonadier, whose real name was Arthur Simes, went to visit his uncle, Jacob Saint, whose real name was Jacob Simes.

When Inspector Roderick Alleyn accepts an invitation to the theater from his friend, newspaper journalist Nigen Bathgate, he doesn't expect to be witness to a murder. During a scene in the play, actors Arthur Surbonadier and Felix Gardner struggle over a gun.

The gun had been loaded by Arthur but, in the struggle, fired by Felix and Arthur dies. Unfortunately, the planned blanks were live and the stage death is real. The question is, was it murder or suicide? Who exchanged out the blanks?

It is a delight to read Ngaio Marsh right from the first page. It is a wonderful period; during the Industrial Revolution and between the wars. Police inspectors were highly educated; in this case an Oxford man. I always love the literary and historical references Alleyn uses in his conversations.

Even for the period, however, the dialogue does seem a bit stilted to me. I am always amused by Alleyn's irreverence and apparent facetious manner. The lack of expletives is refreshing: "Props uttered a few well-chosen and highly illuminating words. "He was" were the only two of them that were printable." I was also amused when a character would be mentioned but you were immediately advised that character was not germane to the story.

In today's world, you would never find a detective using a journalist to do their investigative work but a confrontation between Alleyn and Bathgate was effective in legitimizing their working together.

It is plot that drove the story; who did it, how and why? It is a bit frustrating knowing that the author holds back information from the reader until the final confrontation.

Nonetheless, I always enjoy rereading the Golden Age authors and Marsh in particular.

The second of 32 mystery novels by Ngaio Marsh, Enter a Murderer establishes Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn as a leading detective to compete with -- and, many reviewers soon found, eclipse Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.

Enter a Murderer opens at the Unicorn Theater with a stage drama that calls for murder, and murder is exactly what occurs the night Alleyn accepts an invitation to see the show with Nigel Bathgate, the newspaper reporter who serves as a mascot early in the series, much like Capt. Hastings with Poirot. The gun, of course, is supposed to be loaded with blanks, but Alleyn is one of the first to realize that live bullets have replaced the blanks and hurries backstage with Bathgate.

I have read and re-read each of the 32 novels many, many times, once reading them in order of publication to observe Marsh's evolution as a mystery novelist. I don't have a favorite -- I love them all. The early works, such as this one, are the kind of mystery novels that made the Golden Age golden and established the genre as a lasting category of fiction. The stories are enjoyable. The characters are at once real and better-than-real. In her second outing, Marsh draws upon her experience with the theater and the world of actors and actresses to take her readers backstage and behind the scenes. This is a world she will revisit often, and it is clear that it is one that she knows well.

If you haven't read Marsh, you owe it to yourself to start and it doesn't much matter where. Each story is independent, although I very much enjoyed reading through the series in order and noting the subtle changes that changing times brought to Marsh's characters and her work. They move gracefully from one decade to the next, as enjoyable in the 30s as in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, and take her readers from England to her native New Zealand and back again. Her final volume was published just before her death in 1982, and she seems to have maintained her voice throughout her 50-year career.

Ngaio Marsh's mysteries will certainly appeal to fans of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and other Golden Age writers. She has been praised by peers such as Erle Stanley Gardner. As much as I like Christie, I think Marsh outshines her in every facet of writing.

This is the second mystery featuring Alleyn. The first is "A Man Lay Dead" (1934). Marsh is one of the grand dames from the golden age of mysteries. You learn a lot about the theater, painting and New Zealand while reading her books.

The stories set in an actor/stage setting are my least favorites of the Marsh books. The exception is "A Night at the Vulcan" which I enjoyed very much. This is a good story, well told.

The book came quickly and in very good condition. I honestly have never heard of the writer and I decided to give her a try. My Pen-Pal in England who is a big reader mentioned this Author and how she liked her style. I'm only into a few chapters but can say the author draws one into the characters and has a certain charm to her style. Quite a find!