Sunday, April 09, 2023

2023 book 61

 Ngaio Marsh's A Man Lay Dead

I’m always looking for more classic mysteries a la Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie (the latter unfortunately tends toward racism and antisemitism), so decided to check out another woman writer of the 1930s, Ngaio Marsh. This is the first of her Inspector Roderick Alleyn mysteries and involves a murder at an English house party, which is legit my favorite subgenre of murder mystery. Interesting characters and even though I was /pretty/ sure I knew whodunnit, Marsh kept me guessing a little. There is some silly side business with Russian secret societies and their sacred knives (and bizarrely depicted accents) but otherwise this was solidly entertaining. I will be checking out more in this series. A-.

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