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alic59books's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
exurbanis's review against another edition
3.0
February was a month of first tries of well-respected authors. I grew up loving Agatha Christie – and I don’t know how I never heard of Ngaio Marsh before a couple of years ago. (And I’m not sure that, without the Internet, I would be familiar with her yet today.)
This was my first Marsh because I won it from Bev at My Reader’s Block for completing a mini-challenge in last year’s Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge, but it’s #19 in the Insepctor Roderick Alleyn series.
I liked Alleyn and I thought the mystery was fairly clued, if a little confusing, since there was a heavy country dialect and an apparent assumption that the reader would have some knowledge of British country folk theatre.
I’m definitely going to read lots more Marsh. This first try: 3½ stars
Read this if: you have an interest in folk theatre, particularly in winter solstice dance rituals.
This was my first Marsh because I won it from Bev at My Reader’s Block for completing a mini-challenge in last year’s Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge, but it’s #19 in the Insepctor Roderick Alleyn series.
I liked Alleyn and I thought the mystery was fairly clued, if a little confusing, since there was a heavy country dialect and an apparent assumption that the reader would have some knowledge of British country folk theatre.
I’m definitely going to read lots more Marsh. This first try: 3½ stars
Read this if: you have an interest in folk theatre, particularly in winter solstice dance rituals.
thereadingbel's review against another edition
3.0
Set in 1950s Britain, an annual ritual dance held on the winter solstice. The winter solstice is nearing, and South Mardian is preparing for its local mummery play that the community has held on Sword Wednesday for centuries, passing along the music and dance.
Dame Alice Mardian is greatly displeased by the presence of an outsider, Mrs. Bunz, a folklore specialist, because the people of South Mardian want to keep things local. Dr. Otterly plays the fiddle for the dance, William Andersen, the local blacksmith known locally as “the Guiser,” plays the Fool, while his five sons (Dan, Andy, Nat, Chris, and Ernie, whose initials together spell “dance”) play the five sons of the dance. Ernie, who is “not quite right in the head,” has long wanted to play the Fool, and it seems he will get his wish when he produces a note from the Geiser, who has been sick, saying that he can’t go on. They all do the routine, which ends with a mock decapitation of the Fool by the swords of all five sons. When it comes time for the Fool to rise, Ernie laughs hysterically, “Blood for the stone!” They discover that not only is the Geiser dead, but he has been decapitated. Inspector Alleyn of Scotland Yard becomes involved as he unravels the mysteries of the eighteenth century ceremony.
I just love these old British mysteries.
Dame Alice Mardian is greatly displeased by the presence of an outsider, Mrs. Bunz, a folklore specialist, because the people of South Mardian want to keep things local. Dr. Otterly plays the fiddle for the dance, William Andersen, the local blacksmith known locally as “the Guiser,” plays the Fool, while his five sons (Dan, Andy, Nat, Chris, and Ernie, whose initials together spell “dance”) play the five sons of the dance. Ernie, who is “not quite right in the head,” has long wanted to play the Fool, and it seems he will get his wish when he produces a note from the Geiser, who has been sick, saying that he can’t go on. They all do the routine, which ends with a mock decapitation of the Fool by the swords of all five sons. When it comes time for the Fool to rise, Ernie laughs hysterically, “Blood for the stone!” They discover that not only is the Geiser dead, but he has been decapitated. Inspector Alleyn of Scotland Yard becomes involved as he unravels the mysteries of the eighteenth century ceremony.
I just love these old British mysteries.
carolsnotebook's review against another edition
3.0
Death of a Fool takes place around the winter solstice. In South Mardian, a sword dance/fertility ritual/mummer play is performed every year, but this time, the fool (the father) is actually beheaded. I don't know anything about English folk dances, but the dance featured in Death of a Fool is interesting. Granted, it's a fictional dance, but the author tells us that she did use elements from a variety of traditional dances. Reading about the rehearsals, the performance, the costume and the history was fun. The dance is performed by the elderly blacksmiths, his five sons and a couple of other village men. They are also the most obvious suspects, especially the sons as they were the ones with the sword during the dance. Of course, the other performers have motives too. There are so many reasons to kill the old man: anger revenge, money, and just to get him out of the way.
Alleyn is called in to investigate. In a small town, everybody knows everybody's secrets, but no one wants to tell the cops. The clues are well-done, they make sense, even if I didn't catch them all. I liked all the characters, too, especially Dame Alice Mardian, the ninety-plus year old village matriarch. She's smart and funny and clearly is enjoying being up close to the investigation. There's also a young couple in love, as is often the case in Marsh's mysteries. The romance is always in the background, but does provide some motive.
Alleyn is called in to investigate. In a small town, everybody knows everybody's secrets, but no one wants to tell the cops. The clues are well-done, they make sense, even if I didn't catch them all. I liked all the characters, too, especially Dame Alice Mardian, the ninety-plus year old village matriarch. She's smart and funny and clearly is enjoying being up close to the investigation. There's also a young couple in love, as is often the case in Marsh's mysteries. The romance is always in the background, but does provide some motive.
femmm's review against another edition
2.0
Wel een aardig boek, maar vond het soms wat verwarrend omdat er zoveel personages zijn. Ook komt er niet echt diepgang in het verhaal, waardoor je er toch niet helemaal in wordt gezogen. Het verhaal was leuk, maar helaas niet heel spannend.
smessmores's review against another edition
3.0
Really *** 1/2
Another well-written mystery. I figured out some of the clues earlier on and so had a pretty good idea of who the murderer was, but still enjoyed seeing it play out.
Another well-written mystery. I figured out some of the clues earlier on and so had a pretty good idea of who the murderer was, but still enjoyed seeing it play out.
smcleish's review
2.0
Originally published on my blog here in January 1999.
Having in her previous novel, [b:Scales Of Justice|660244|Scales Of Justice|Ngaio Marsh|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176851704s/660244.jpg|868801], written a fair imitation of Agatha Christie, in Off With His Head Marsh attempts an imitation of certain aspects of Dorothy Sayers. Marsh always has a style which is more like Christie than Sayers, and this she keeps; it is the setting which reminds me of Sayers. In several of her books, Sayers took a particular part of English culture and wrote a mystery absolutely steeped in that culture: bellringing in The Nine Tailors, advertising in Murder Must Advertise, and Oxbridge in Gaudy Night. Off With His Head attempts the same with the peculiar world of the village folk dance and its much mangled pagan origins.
On each Sword Wednesday, that nearest the winter solstice, the inhabitants of the two remote villages of High and Low Mardian gather for a dance. The climax of this is a sword dance in which the Five Sonse cut off the head of their father, the Fool in a sort of mime in which the blood is provided by a rabbit's head; the Fool then hides for a time, to reappear at the end, resurrected. The dancers this year - and, indeed, every recent year - are really a father and his five sons; and this year the father is really killed.
There are several reasons why this novel is not among Marsh's best. She manages to make the background rather dull, that the way that modern morris dancing seems so silly is a problem. She continually emphasises the pagan roots, the parallels with the Adonis myth as explored in Frazer's [b:The Golden Bough|408862|The Golden Bough|James George Frazer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174504446s/408862.jpg|16303733], and explicitly distances her characters from the idiocies of the folk movement, but her invented dance, a synthesis of elements from real dances, still seems artificial.
The major problem with this novel is the stereotypical parade of suspects. There is the German folklore expert, desperate to see the dance and an object of suspicion to the villagers because of the war; she makes herself an object of suspicion to the police because of her fear of them derived from her experiences as an opponent of Nazism in pre-war Germany, the occasion for many annoying remarks along the lines of "It couldn't happen here." There is the epileptic, one of the sones, viewed as an idiot by the villagers but considered capable of killing without knowing what he was doing. There are the other sons, keen to move the family business into the twentieth century against the wishes of their father. Those who do not ever really come into the picture include a pair of young lovers, a standard accessory in crime fiction; these are among the more annoying of their kind. None of the characters are more than sketchy stereotypes; all in all, Off With His Head is one of Marsh's worst novels.
Having in her previous novel, [b:Scales Of Justice|660244|Scales Of Justice|Ngaio Marsh|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176851704s/660244.jpg|868801], written a fair imitation of Agatha Christie, in Off With His Head Marsh attempts an imitation of certain aspects of Dorothy Sayers. Marsh always has a style which is more like Christie than Sayers, and this she keeps; it is the setting which reminds me of Sayers. In several of her books, Sayers took a particular part of English culture and wrote a mystery absolutely steeped in that culture: bellringing in The Nine Tailors, advertising in Murder Must Advertise, and Oxbridge in Gaudy Night. Off With His Head attempts the same with the peculiar world of the village folk dance and its much mangled pagan origins.
On each Sword Wednesday, that nearest the winter solstice, the inhabitants of the two remote villages of High and Low Mardian gather for a dance. The climax of this is a sword dance in which the Five Sonse cut off the head of their father, the Fool in a sort of mime in which the blood is provided by a rabbit's head; the Fool then hides for a time, to reappear at the end, resurrected. The dancers this year - and, indeed, every recent year - are really a father and his five sons; and this year the father is really killed.
There are several reasons why this novel is not among Marsh's best. She manages to make the background rather dull, that the way that modern morris dancing seems so silly is a problem. She continually emphasises the pagan roots, the parallels with the Adonis myth as explored in Frazer's [b:The Golden Bough|408862|The Golden Bough|James George Frazer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174504446s/408862.jpg|16303733], and explicitly distances her characters from the idiocies of the folk movement, but her invented dance, a synthesis of elements from real dances, still seems artificial.
The major problem with this novel is the stereotypical parade of suspects. There is the German folklore expert, desperate to see the dance and an object of suspicion to the villagers because of the war; she makes herself an object of suspicion to the police because of her fear of them derived from her experiences as an opponent of Nazism in pre-war Germany, the occasion for many annoying remarks along the lines of "It couldn't happen here." There is the epileptic, one of the sones, viewed as an idiot by the villagers but considered capable of killing without knowing what he was doing. There are the other sons, keen to move the family business into the twentieth century against the wishes of their father. Those who do not ever really come into the picture include a pair of young lovers, a standard accessory in crime fiction; these are among the more annoying of their kind. None of the characters are more than sketchy stereotypes; all in all, Off With His Head is one of Marsh's worst novels.
aemsea26's review
2.0
Hm. I know not what to think about Ngaio Marsh. According to SOME PEOPLE (aka the people who write blurbs for the back of Ngaio Marsh's books), Agatha Christie should be compared to her, rather than vice versa but that's a bit of a stretch.
Because I love Agatha Christie, I've been desperately searching for The Next Agatha Christie. I like Ngaio March better than Margery Allingham but slightly less than Dorothy L. Sayers. And that's because I love Lord Peter Wimsy.
The problem I have in reading all three of the aforementioned authors is that I often feel that the humor and most of the situations in general are way over my head. Inspector Alleyn / Lord Peter / Albert Campion are always making nonsensical proclamations, ostensibly solving the mystery, then following up with, "Right-ho, cheery-bye!" and their respective companions are like, "Ah yes, capital plan!" and I'm like, hulk no read good. Is it supposed to be that way? I don't know if it is because things are supposed to remain obscure and hidden until The Big Reveal or because I am not familiar with pre-war British parlance or WHAT, but it makes me feel really stupid. I always think I am missing something but I'm not sure what.
However, Agatha is different - sure, there are things that aren't entirely clear until the genius last chapter, but it's okay because even if you don't understand, at least you're not as stupid as Hastings.
Because I love Agatha Christie, I've been desperately searching for The Next Agatha Christie. I like Ngaio March better than Margery Allingham but slightly less than Dorothy L. Sayers. And that's because I love Lord Peter Wimsy.
The problem I have in reading all three of the aforementioned authors is that I often feel that the humor and most of the situations in general are way over my head. Inspector Alleyn / Lord Peter / Albert Campion are always making nonsensical proclamations, ostensibly solving the mystery, then following up with, "Right-ho, cheery-bye!" and their respective companions are like, "Ah yes, capital plan!" and I'm like, hulk no read good. Is it supposed to be that way? I don't know if it is because things are supposed to remain obscure and hidden until The Big Reveal or because I am not familiar with pre-war British parlance or WHAT, but it makes me feel really stupid. I always think I am missing something but I'm not sure what.
However, Agatha is different - sure, there are things that aren't entirely clear until the genius last chapter, but it's okay because even if you don't understand, at least you're not as stupid as Hastings.
kpeninger's review
4.0
Classic Ngaio Marsh style. Enjoyed this "locked room" style mystery that takes place in the middle of a Morris dance where you can see everyone, including the deceased, at all times and thus can't figure out how they could have been killed.
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