R E K. (bigstone) - , reviewed on 1/15/2018 + 1438 more book reviews

Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand crime writer and theatre director, wrote many mysteries beginning in 1933. This one focuses on a murder of a man found in a ditch killed by a pipe. Set in a small village in England, Superintendent Roderick Alleyn and his assistant, Fox, are trying to find the killer. They discover that most of victim's acquaintances had motives.

Interestingly, almost all of the author's 32 novels feature British CID detective Alleyn. Only four are set in New Zealand, with Alleyn either on secondment to the New Zealand police (Vintage Murder,Colour Scheme, and Died in the Wool), or on holiday (Photo Finish); Surfeit of Lampreys begins in New Zealand but continues in London. I give it 3.5 stars.
Note that Ngaio Marsh. along with Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Agatha Christie, she has been classed as one of the four original "Queens of Crime"; female British crime writers who dominated the crime fiction genre in the Golden Age of the 1920s and 1930s. Certainly this author deserves more attention from today's readers. (Adapted from pbs commentary about the author's life)

I really love these vintage mysteries and this one was not easy to solve. The murderer was not someone I suspected at all. Not sure about the motive but it was a good, good, read.

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