Malevolent Marine Mammals of Murder Monday
May. 9th, 2016 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bArchived from Livejournal
The time has come. . .
. . .to tell you I was WRONG. There is a killer dolphin in Killer Dolphin! It's just that it's a bronze statuette somebody used as a murder weapon, rather than a living (killer) animal. This is a theater mystery with several interesting cranks, a restored Victorian theater full of lovingly described kitsch and velvet, an alleged relic of Shakespeare, and lots of gossip. The immediate means of solving the mystery is a bit of a cheat, but not so that it matters very much.
Killer Dolphin has some of Marsh's best caricatures and one of her weakest, plus a version of the recurring Repulsive Child Performer character I like, plus an eccentric millionaire with a dark secret whose sexuality everyone spends an unseemly amount of time arguing about. This book takes place ostensibly in the present (1966), represented by oblique references to the Beatles and direct ones to TV, but you'd never notice it otherwise. Marsh seems to be doubling down on use of "ejaculated" as a dialogue tag as the century wears on.
I would be remiss if I didn't quote you this brush with Irrefutable Face Science:
Note the wide-spaced eyes of unscrupulousness are light blue here, rather than dark blue as in Tey. Maybe one's eyes darken when malice is tempered by the false generosity of nymphomania. Later, Fox comments:
But what about Dead Water? It's ok, too, though I think this is the second book in which Marsh gives a character epilepsy without quite seeming to know what epilepsy is. The small town-turned spiritual tourist trap stuff gets shoved aside in favor of some less appealing drama, but it all comes together in the end, if a little sloppily. There's our stalwart companion the Hysterical Sex-Starved Spinster, plus the requisite non-hysterical spinster for balance, unhappy wives, the choleric military retiree, the hapless clergyman, and the Nice Young Couple who shudder a little at the unlovely neuroses of their elders but decide to make a go of marriage anyway, it being a new generation with improved mores and all. It's been thirty years since the first Inspector Alleyn mystery; the Nice Young Couples of the early books have since ripened into today's middle-aged cautionary tales (but Alleyn hasn't aged a bit as far as anyone can tell). In the end, Alleyn introduces Fox to his old Foreign Service French tutor, who offers to help him with his French.
A trivial fact: I think I've now read more novels by Ngaio Marsh than by any other single author, with the possible exception of Ann M. Martin whose singleness is a little ambiguous. Eventually, unless the unforeseen happens and I get bored with the Extended Murderverse, Agatha Christie will have her beat, but this hasn't happened yet and won't for a while.
The nice thing about Ngaio Marsh is that almost any book in her catalog can stand as an example of what's appealing about Ngaio Marsh. The first few books are awkward, with uncertain characterization and bad action scenes and Bolshevik anarchist menaces, but once she hits her stride (around Vintage Murder) there are very few weak links; she's a remarkably consistent writer. If you like the Marsh formula, there's enough of it to keep you busy for a long time, and if you don't, it should be clear after a book or two.
KILLER DOLPHIN was #24, so if Marsh is going to go into a decline, she has eight more books in which to do it. Is it going to happen? I'm going to bet on "not very much."
What's next: It's time to catch up with Sherlock Holmes in the Adventure of the Opinionated Footnotes! And possibly some other things, too. The next Marsh book is Clutch of Constables, but I probably won't get to it right away.
The time has come. . .
. . .to tell you I was WRONG. There is a killer dolphin in Killer Dolphin! It's just that it's a bronze statuette somebody used as a murder weapon, rather than a living (killer) animal. This is a theater mystery with several interesting cranks, a restored Victorian theater full of lovingly described kitsch and velvet, an alleged relic of Shakespeare, and lots of gossip. The immediate means of solving the mystery is a bit of a cheat, but not so that it matters very much.
Killer Dolphin has some of Marsh's best caricatures and one of her weakest, plus a version of the recurring Repulsive Child Performer character I like, plus an eccentric millionaire with a dark secret whose sexuality everyone spends an unseemly amount of time arguing about. This book takes place ostensibly in the present (1966), represented by oblique references to the Beatles and direct ones to TV, but you'd never notice it otherwise. Marsh seems to be doubling down on use of "ejaculated" as a dialogue tag as the century wears on.
I would be remiss if I didn't quote you this brush with Irrefutable Face Science:
He gazed fixedly into Alleyn's face. "I studied physiognomy," he surprisingly said. "When I was in New York" — for a moment he looked hideously put out but instantly recovered — "I met a most distinguished authority — Earl P. Van Smidt — and I became seriously interested in the science. I have studied and observed and I have proved my conclusions. Over and again. I have completely satisfied myself — but com-pletely — that when you see a pair of unusually round eyes, rather far apart, very light blue and without depth — look out. Look out!" he repeated and flung himself into the chair he had vacated.
"What for?" Alleyn inquired.
"Treachery. Shiftiness. Utter unscrupulousness. Complete lack of ethical values. I quote from Van Smidt."
"Dear me."
Note the wide-spaced eyes of unscrupulousness are light blue here, rather than dark blue as in Tey. Maybe one's eyes darken when malice is tempered by the false generosity of nymphomania. Later, Fox comments:
"Do you reckon Knight believes all that about Grove? Being a homicidal type? All that stuff about pale eyes etcetera. Because," Fox said with great emphasis, "it's all poppycock: there aren't any facial characteristics for murder. What's that you're always quoting about there being no art to find the mind's construction in the face? I reckon it's fair enough where homicide's concerned. Although," Fox added, opening his own eyes very wide, "I always fancy there's a kind of look about sex offenders of a certain type. That I will allow."
But what about Dead Water? It's ok, too, though I think this is the second book in which Marsh gives a character epilepsy without quite seeming to know what epilepsy is. The small town-turned spiritual tourist trap stuff gets shoved aside in favor of some less appealing drama, but it all comes together in the end, if a little sloppily. There's our stalwart companion the Hysterical Sex-Starved Spinster, plus the requisite non-hysterical spinster for balance, unhappy wives, the choleric military retiree, the hapless clergyman, and the Nice Young Couple who shudder a little at the unlovely neuroses of their elders but decide to make a go of marriage anyway, it being a new generation with improved mores and all. It's been thirty years since the first Inspector Alleyn mystery; the Nice Young Couples of the early books have since ripened into today's middle-aged cautionary tales (but Alleyn hasn't aged a bit as far as anyone can tell). In the end, Alleyn introduces Fox to his old Foreign Service French tutor, who offers to help him with his French.
A trivial fact: I think I've now read more novels by Ngaio Marsh than by any other single author, with the possible exception of Ann M. Martin whose singleness is a little ambiguous. Eventually, unless the unforeseen happens and I get bored with the Extended Murderverse, Agatha Christie will have her beat, but this hasn't happened yet and won't for a while.
The nice thing about Ngaio Marsh is that almost any book in her catalog can stand as an example of what's appealing about Ngaio Marsh. The first few books are awkward, with uncertain characterization and bad action scenes and Bolshevik anarchist menaces, but once she hits her stride (around Vintage Murder) there are very few weak links; she's a remarkably consistent writer. If you like the Marsh formula, there's enough of it to keep you busy for a long time, and if you don't, it should be clear after a book or two.
KILLER DOLPHIN was #24, so if Marsh is going to go into a decline, she has eight more books in which to do it. Is it going to happen? I'm going to bet on "not very much."
What's next: It's time to catch up with Sherlock Holmes in the Adventure of the Opinionated Footnotes! And possibly some other things, too. The next Marsh book is Clutch of Constables, but I probably won't get to it right away.
