Overture to Death Author:Ngaio Marsh Prelude to Murder in C Sharp Minor -- — The scene is an English village, and the characters area dozen or more of its assorted inhabitants, including the village squire, his son Henry who is in love with the Rector's daughter, the local medico, the squire's spinster cousin who runs his household, the town's leading spinster, Idris Cam... more »panula, and others.
So cleverly is the stage set, and so well drawn and human the characters, that when one of them is killed right before the eyes of the others, the reader can almost feel himself among those present. The murder, baffling and bizarre, is a piece of consummate artistry made plausible by the convincing psychological explanation of the underlying motives. Such disparate items are involved in the plot as an amateur theatrical, an onion, a sore finger, Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C Sharp Minor, a water pistol, aspidastras, and repressed emotions.
An Inspector Roderick Alleyn mystery, originally published in 1939.« less