Dame Ngaio Marsh is the Dame Agatha Christie of New Zealand. Or Dame Agatha Christie is the Dame Ngaio Marsh of England. Depends whose work you’re more familiar with, I suppose. Either way, I’ve come to love anything from either Crime Queen (even Christie’s weird ones near the end of her career.) While Christie has her Hercule Poirot, Marsh has Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, a tall, reasonable, and charming man employed by the Scotland Yard. While Poirot comes off as quite peculiar, Alleyn fits in well with the casts of characters - so much so that in this one, he manages to maintain an alias until a clumsy mistake by a character he took in his confidence.
“All aboard for murder! The Cape Farewell steams out to sea, carrying a serial strangler who says it with flowers and a little song. Behind, on a fogbound London dock, lies his latest lovely victim; and on board, working undercover to identify him before he strikes again, is Inspector Roderick Alleyn. But-with a collection of neurotic, bombastic, shifty, and passionate passengers at one another's throats-how long can he keep the investigation on course?”
The first 20 pages were a little slow, and I had a hard time distinguishing the characters in my head. I brought this book to work, left it at work, and didn’t pick it up again for over a year. Oops.
But I had stopped a hair too soon, because once Alleyn boards the boat, the personalities emerge and each one is crystal clear. They bounce off each other at a furious pace, and the boat becomes fraught with tension. Only the good manners of the priest, the vivacious and rich Mrs. Dillington-Blick, and Alleyn serve to temper the others.
I enjoyed the description of the atmosphere and activities that happened on a cruise ship back in the day, and the attention to detail in describing clothes, table settings, and the town they stop at reminded me of looking at old advertisement printed in black and white on that paper that fades to beige/yellow over time. Mrs. Dillington-Blick is described as the height of prosperity and good taste, and to me, in this time, she sounds utterly ridiculous.
There was a fair amount of pseudo-science that deflated the end, and then there were the anti-LGBTQIA+ comments that went right over my head - I read the term “queer” as out-of-the-ordinary, rather than its other meaning, which was intentionally derogatory at the time of the novel. I only read the comments as they were intended after another reviewer on Goodreads pointed them out.
This raised a debate within myself about reading books with racist, sexist, and queer-phobic overtones or by authors who have expressed less-than-appropriate views - I concluded that I will not be supporting these authors monetarily, and will put my money where my mouth is. The authors of today have no excuse - and that includes you, JK Rowling!
However, I believe it is important to read older works that reflect the thinking of the times, as well as to be exposed to a myriad of experiences and points of view. The language itself has changed drastically, and it is more of a challenge to read books like these. I also read nearly exclusively used books, and the only one profiting from them at that point is the used book store owner - #shoplocal!
I’ve also pledged to diversify my bookshelf. After doing a review, I have under 5 books by authors that are not white, and one of those is by a known misogynist. I was disappointed with myself over that, and am using a book exchange to ask for books by black authors. We can only promise to do better, then follow through on that promise.
Overall, a 3/5 read.
Black lives matter.
Happy reading,
Holly
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