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missmary98's review against another edition
4.0
This was such a fantastic introduction to the series and the main characters that it would've been a 5 if it wasn't for that side plot with the Russians that I'm still super confused about.
ma_non's review
3.0
« chatouillez un russe, et il sortira son couteau mongol. »
3 étoiles parce que je l’ai lu, sans que ce soit une lecture incroyable pour autant, c’est tout de même un récit qui change, écrit en 1940 donc forcément, c’est léger, c’est différent, donc appréciable.
J’aime les enquêtes, j’aime qu’on me raconte le déroulé d’un crime plusieurs fois pour déterminer qui a fait le coup. Et pour le coup! Une vraie débandade, c’est pas demain qu’un crime sera commis de cette façon, en terme de créativité, j’ai galéré à m’imaginer la mise en scène. Et puis les personnages ont des dialogues tellement improbables, et hilarants. Ça rend des situations sérieuses vraiment très cocasses et c’était très bien vu !
3 étoiles parce que je l’ai lu, sans que ce soit une lecture incroyable pour autant, c’est tout de même un récit qui change, écrit en 1940 donc forcément, c’est léger, c’est différent, donc appréciable.
J’aime les enquêtes, j’aime qu’on me raconte le déroulé d’un crime plusieurs fois pour déterminer qui a fait le coup. Et pour le coup! Une vraie débandade, c’est pas demain qu’un crime sera commis de cette façon, en terme de créativité, j’ai galéré à m’imaginer la mise en scène. Et puis les personnages ont des dialogues tellement improbables, et hilarants. Ça rend des situations sérieuses vraiment très cocasses et c’était très bien vu !
johnke's review against another edition
2.0
The author has a beautiful way with words and at some points, the language was so wonderfully modern, all wry and sardonic and self-aware. But the plotting was awful, with a dozen or so characters not so much introduced but rather vomited onto the page over a couple of paragraphs so I spent half the book going “now which one is this?” For example, there are two characters, a Mr and a Mrs Wilde, and yet while the two are in conversation, the author would refer to one of them as “Wilde”, as in “”Wilde said...”.
This was my first Inspector Alleyn book, but based on this outing, I don’t know if I’ll make the effort with the rest.
This was my first Inspector Alleyn book, but based on this outing, I don’t know if I’ll make the effort with the rest.
roberta_carr's review against another edition
4.0
I always find Ngaio Marsh slightly frustrating. The plots are not as good as Agatha Christie's, and the characterisations are not as good as Dorothy L Sayers'. Having said that, this one is really fun. The house party setting is very good snobbish fun and the game during which the murder takes place is pleasurably silly. If you're going to read a Ngaio, this would be one of my top picks, along with Artists in Crime.
mainebookworm22's review against another edition
3.0
Reads like a debut mystery. Alleyn's character was all over the place, convoluted Russian brotherhood side plot, and an unbelievable resolution to the crime. I hear these get better so I will give her another chance, but I was not very impressed with this one.
jackie_l's review against another edition
3.0
I have read other Ngaio Marsh novels, but never read her first, so the "Type A" personality took over and compelled me to start at the beginning of her Chief Inspector-Detective Roderick Alleyn mystery series. This typical British murder mystery novel was definitely not one of her better efforts, so I was glad I was introduced to Alleyn in a later novel when his character was much more developed (and interesting!)
qalminator's review against another edition
3.0
Not as good as early Agatha Christie, but enjoyable enough if you're in the mood for a murder mystery.
The biggest oddity is the attempts to write accents phonetically, with varying degrees of success. The inherent problem with this is that your audience may or may not share your accent and pronunciation of such words, so it may be more confusing than anything else. Case in point: "presoom". Presumably this is to indicate that it's an "ooh" sound rather than the more British "yoo", but it made me wonder about the 's' as well. If we're going phonetic, the regular pronunciation that I know would replace the 's' with a 'z'. Is lack of replacement to indicate that it's pronounced the usual way, or that the speaker actually pronounces it as a 'sss' sound? I have no idea.
The biggest oddity is the attempts to write accents phonetically, with varying degrees of success. The inherent problem with this is that your audience may or may not share your accent and pronunciation of such words, so it may be more confusing than anything else. Case in point: "presoom". Presumably this is to indicate that it's an "ooh" sound rather than the more British "yoo", but it made me wonder about the 's' as well. If we're going phonetic, the regular pronunciation that I know would replace the 's' with a 'z'. Is lack of replacement to indicate that it's pronounced the usual way, or that the speaker actually pronounces it as a 'sss' sound? I have no idea.
jeo224's review against another edition
mysterious
fast-paced
4.0
I read some Ngaio Marsh novels when in college and enjoyed them - I decided to be a bit more organized. This is the first of the Roderick Allen mysteries. An enjoyable read centering on a house party playing the game of murder - still a popular pastime. Some scenes are a bit dated, and there is terminology which is frustrating (and a part of the time period when it was written) - but again, enjoyable and a good fast plot.