Artists in Crime Inspector Roderick Alleyn (Volume 6) - Ngaio Marsh

Category: Adults, Classic, Crime, Detective
Language: English
Keywords: Inspector Roderick Alleyn Traditional Detective Mysteries

Written by Ngaio Marsh
Read by Terry Wilton
Format: Opus
Bitrate: 32 Kbps
Unabridged

(Better than many modern mysteries, although be warned Ngaio Marsh comes off as more dated now than Agatha Christie).
This novel, which relates the first meeting between Scotland Yard Inspector Roderick Alleyn and the artist Agatha Troy, is both a good mystery and a picture of what kind of book was popular in the 1930s. After Alleyn and Troy meet on a ship sailing back to England from the South Pacific (and they do not meet well, although he is interested in her), Alleyn is called to investigate a murder at Troy’s home conveniently down the road from his mother’s. An artist’s model has been murdered, and there is literally a cast of suspects who had the motivation to `do her in’, including Troy herself. The plot is pretty procedural, although the identity of the murderer is kept hidden for quite awhile. The great thing is the language and style of the novel: slang terms, endearments, and descriptions of people are wonderfully appropriate to the time in which the novel first appeared. The relationship between Alleyn and his mother could not be written `straight’ today: the `darlings’ and `mammas’ would be a joke in the 21st century, especially since Alleyn is not a young man at this point. Troy and Alleyn’s misunderstandings, and the rather melodramatic `Epilogue in a Garden’ is fun to read and would have played well to the original readers; it’s full of dramatic tension and yet a little silly at the same time.