Stephanie Jane reviewed Vintage Murder by Ngaio Marsh
Too formulaic
3 stars
I was sure I must have read an Ngaio Marsh novel before now, but - according to my Goodreads - Vintage Murder is my first. I hope, therefore, that I inadvertently picked up one of her lesser works because I'm sorry to say that I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be. Vintage Murder is the fifth story featuring Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn who sends himself to New Zealand to recuperate from an unspecified injury - possibly inflicted during book four. Marsh doesn't go in for recapping previous novels. Alleyn is a bit of a fish out of water when he finds himself pushed to the forefront of a theatrical murder investigation. The local New Zealand police are unbelievably grateful that this posh English detective graces them with his expertise though. It's all very colonial - from an English perspective.
The mystery itself is suitably …
I was sure I must have read an Ngaio Marsh novel before now, but - according to my Goodreads - Vintage Murder is my first. I hope, therefore, that I inadvertently picked up one of her lesser works because I'm sorry to say that I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be. Vintage Murder is the fifth story featuring Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn who sends himself to New Zealand to recuperate from an unspecified injury - possibly inflicted during book four. Marsh doesn't go in for recapping previous novels. Alleyn is a bit of a fish out of water when he finds himself pushed to the forefront of a theatrical murder investigation. The local New Zealand police are unbelievably grateful that this posh English detective graces them with his expertise though. It's all very colonial - from an English perspective.
The mystery itself is suitably intriguing and I did enjoy reading the glimpses we get of New Zealand landscapes. (I hadn't realised that Marsh herself was from that country.) I did find the story itself a little dull though. There's an awful lot of repetitive chitchat and, for a troupe of theatricals, I found most of the characters to be unmemorably bland and interchangeable which is inconvenient when trying to decipher which one of them is a murderer! I was disappointed with the racism too although, as Vintage Murder was published in the 1930s, I probably should have expected it. However, Marsh repeatedly has characters mention racial colour-blindness being part of the New Zealand culture then has her sole Maori character 'behaving like a savage' when he loses his temper. White characters' violence, of course, does not merit a 'savage' descriptor.
Vintage Murder might well have been 'one of Marsh’s most ambitious and innovative novels' in 1937, but it felt rather too formulaic and pedestrian to me in 2020. Fortunately my copy was a free book exchange swap and I think I would try other Ngaio March paperbacks under the same circumstances, but I won't be rushing out to buy her entire back catalogue.