WILL UNWOUND #202: Will’s Mystery Project – “Colour Scheme” by Ngaio Marsh
August 14, 2010I was in a used book store a few months ago and found a very old copy of a mystery, Colour Scheme, by New Zealander Ngaio Marsh. The imprint was 1943. The cover was sturdy but worn, and the pages were frail, yellowed, but quite readable.
When I picked the book up I felt like I was holding a piece of history in my hands. It had been printed during World War II, and the plot is embedded in the war. Yes, this was a literary text, but it was also an artifact. Did this make a difference in my reading experience? Yes, I would have to say it did. In some emotional way it made the era I was reading about seem realer and more immediate in a way that an e-book never could.
This is my twelfth mystery book and by now I have identified the elements of a good mystery story. How does Colour Scheme line up against these criteria?
- The victim must be someone we care about. Check. Marsh gives us a greedy, villainous, and traitorous victim whose murder seems like a fair dose of “street justice.” We care about this victim because he is so awful. His evil nature stirs murderous thoughts in our own justice seeking minds. He makes us identify with the suspects.
- There must be a ring of interesting and plausible suspects. Check. Marsh gives us a ring of 7 possible killers, all with legitimate motives and all with fascinating backgrounds and idiosyncrasies. They are a colorful group of people. Thrown together at the same run down resort, they become even more colorful. Some are likable; others are not.
- The mode of death should be creative and memorable. Check. The victim is lured into a pool of boiling mud at a hot springs spa resort.
- The detective must have flair. Check. Roderick Allyn is one of the great gentleman detectives of the British mystery genre. He’s well born and well educated and subscribes to the maxim that to whom much is given, much is expected. This novel finds him working for military intelligence and assigned to counterespionage. It is his job to find out who is helping the German U-boat commanders spot their targets. That is how he is drawn into the murder plot.
- The setting must captivate the reader’s imagination. Check. War hysteria has spread through coastal New Zealand as several freighters have been sunk by German U boats. Was the murder victim a German spy? We shall see.
- The literary style must be crisp, sharp, and witty. Check. Marsh equals her contemporaries Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers as a literary stylist. She is wittier than Christie and more accessible than Sayers. In short, I could read her prose all day and not get bored. Her humor is pointed but quite funny.
- The resolution must make sense. Check. Marsh is not one to lead you down a steep and tortuous literary path only to fling you down a cliff of disappointment and implausibility. The resolution of this murder is logical, reasonable, satisfying, and quite surprising.
I loved everything about this book from its frail yellowed pages to it crisp and sparkling story line. Does Ngaio Marsh deserve her designation as one of the Grande Dames of British mysteries? Check!
Colour Scheme gets five stars (out of 5).
Will, I wouldn’t necessasrily have recommended starting to read Ngiao Marsh with Colour Scheme. An important part of the plot is that Alleyn visits the spa under an assumed name, and his identity is only revealed at the very end of the book. If a reader is trying to get acquainted with the character, the earlier books might be a better choice to start.
When reading her novels, people should understand the general time period (1930s-1940s) and Marsh’s background (she worked extensively in the theater, and actors and actresses are featured in many of her books).
Will,
You’ll be delighted to know, I’m sure, that this book is available in a Kindle edition and has been reprinted at least twice, 1968 and 1999. Heck, it is also available as an audio download and on CD.
So, others concurred with your positive review
That said, I confess that, like you, I enjoy the original edition, the feel and smell of it, and the sense that I’m closer to the author and stepping into history, somehow.
Thank you for introducing me to a new author!
Added another Marsh title to my rapidly increasing to-read list: Overture to death seems quite popular among readers and seems to be one of the earlier ones although I’m not too sure about that. I’ll find out more when I read it!
What a wonderful review! I have put a reserve on the one you read plus another that looks to be earlier in the series. Boiling mud—what a way to go!
What memories you’ve brought back. When I first read her, her settings were not so remote in time. Thus, characters, events, and atmosphere were not jarring, rather, quite believable. How nice to know she has survived so well; of course, it is her writing which makes that true.
I’ve certainly been aware of Ngaio Marsh for years, but never read her work. Now you’ve got me intrigued.
I remember those wartime books well. My parents had a lot of them when I was growing up, some of which I’ve kept. Many of them had a notice on the verso of the title page (I swear, cataloger that I am, I almost typed “verso of t.p.” — I won’t be able to do that under RDA) stating “This is a wartime book.” and going on to explain how the paper and binding have been economized on to aid the war effort, but the content was not affected — I forget the wording and don’t have one of them at hand to quote. The paper of those books did tend to yellow more, I think, than hardcovers published before or after the war.
One of the saddest things about my current library is that classic mystery authors like Ngaio Marsh have been relegated to the inaccessible storage collection stuck down in the basement with me and the giant cockroaches. No one is going to find these gems by accident. After your discovery of Marsh in the used book store, I’ve been thinking of suggesting that they start a small rotating display of classic mysteries pulled from the basement as a means to introduce these gems to new readers. In the meantime, I try to prevent the thoughtless weeding of these books by using them when I need to test a feature of the ILS. I’ve already insured that Mary Roberts Rinehart has recent last checkout dates. Maybe Marsh should be next. BTW, I’m not advocating that you read Rinehart. She’s the queen of the “had I but known” school, which I suspect would annoy you to no end. And on a side note, love or hate the Kindle, I just discovered I can add the entire 27-works of Rinehart to mine for $1.99. For some reason none of the Ngaio Marsh Kindle editions are available to US customers.
Great idea, Mary Ellen. I hope your library goes for it. Some old books are just trash, but others just need a little bit of p.r.
When you finish the Mystery Project and get back to Marsh, I recommend Artists in Crime for a good one to learn about Roderick Allyn. My favorite, though, is Death of a Fool. That one concentrates more on the people involved in the murder than on Allyn.
I love old books and Ngaio is one of my favorites from the Golden Age of Detective Novels…nothing brings you back like an old, yellowed original edition. Too bad the public libraries are weeding out the old classics for the newer bestsellers. My pet peeve.
Will,
I think another important thing that ‘makes’ a mystery is a certain intangible connection the reader feels for the story.
For example: One of my favorite series is the Meg Langslow stuff by Donna Andrews. These are very much in the vein of light fun mystery reads. From what you’ve revealed about your personal taste, I don’t think they would appeal to you very much. However, I read the first one (Murder with Peacocks) a few months before I was getting married to a woman with a large, eccentric very close knit family. The story is framed around a woman who is organizing three weddings with the help of her large, eccentric, close knit family.
Maybe you can see why I found it appealing.
To this day, I read the new books in the series when they come out and they make me reflect on a happy, emotional, complicated part of my life.
I don’t think that its *just* mysteries that can do this, but I seem to encounter it more with mysteries than any other genre.