Died in the Wool (The Ngaio Marsh Collection)
By Ngaio Marsh
4/5
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Ngaio Marsh
Dame Ngaio Marsh was born in New Zealand in 1895 and died in February 1982. She wrote over 30 detective novels and many of her stories have theatrical settings, for Ngaio Marsh’s real passion was the theatre. She was both an actress and producer and almost single-handedly revived the New Zealand public’s interest in the theatre. It was for this work that the received what she called her ‘damery’ in 1966.
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Reviews for Died in the Wool (The Ngaio Marsh Collection)
97 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A female politician's body is found encased in a bale of wool in this "golden age" mystery set in New Zealand. Quite fun.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5New Zealand, 1943Indeholder kapitlerne "Prolog", " 1939", " 1942", "1. Alleyn ankommer til Mount Moon. Maj 1943", "2. Ursula Harmes beretning", "3. Douglas Glaces beretning", "4. Fabian Losses beretning", "5. Terence Lynnes beretning", "6. Den officielle politirapport", "7. Ben Wilsons beretning", "8. Cliff Johns' beretning", "9. Angrebet", "10. Nattens hændelser", "11. Arthur Rubricks beretning".Arthur og Florence Rubrick har Mount Moon fårefarm i New Zealand. En dag i 1942 skal Florence tidligt afsted for at nå frem til regeringsbyen den næste dag via postbil, tog og færge. Tilsyneladende er hun taget afsted, men hun når aldrig frem og der går et par dage før det går op for hendes mand og de øvrige i husstanden. Hun er sporløst forsvundet, men man finder hendes pakkede kuffert i et skab og pungen med rejsepas og penge ligger i en skuffe i hendes toiletbord. Først flere uger senere finder man hende i en hårdtpresset balle uld, hvor lugten gør voldsomt opmærksom på at noget er galt. Det er under krigen og Fabian Losse, som er Arthurs nevø, får et års tid senere lokket kriminalassistent Roderick Alleyn på banen ved at antyde at der måske er spionage involveret. Fabian og Douglas Glace har udviklet noget antiluftskyts og er bange for at konstruktionstegningerne er blevet lækket.???
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5While I liked the New Zealand setting, this entry in the Inspector Alleyn series was not one of Marsh's better efforts.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now this one is more like it! It features Mr. Alleyn from the beginning. It's still set in NZ and features both a murder and his war work of dealing with the Nazis, and seems most appropriate to read during our current political climate. The people are well drawn and complex, and the murderer hard to figure out. There's a good bit of psychology in it, and it is well thought out.
The hardest thing about listening to this one is that it features someone with a head wound, and I'm home listening to books as I recover from a concussion! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really liked this mystery set in New Zealand. Even though I knew the murderer very early on, the book was a pretty compelling read.A bossy yet generous older woman, an MP in New Zealand, goes missing in the middle of WW 2. Three weeks later her body is found, stuffed in a bale of wool. Was it her personality that motivated the murder? Or was it connected to some form of wartime espionage?Usually I dislike the addition of possible spying or the like in my mysteries. Here, however, Marsh blends that right into the mystery plot. Almost the entire book consists of conversations, with dome action coming at the very end, and the plot is neatly tied up. Recommended for those who like vintage mysteries, or those who just want something a little different from a good writer.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inspector Alleyn happens to be in New Zealand during World War II and has the opportunity to investigate a death on a sheep farm. The cast of characters includes many good suspects, and Marsh does a good job creating suspicion with many. However, the hint for the perpetrator was a bit too obvious. Still there are interesting tidbits about sheep farming included, and the New Zealand setting is a nice change from American and British ones in so much detective fiction. I listened to this one on Blackstone Audio on Overdrive. The female narrator did a good job.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nigel Bathgate has finally been left behind but Alleyn's thoughts are just as irritating as ever. The mystery is really not all that interesting, probably because this is a war novel. Redeeming features are: the description of the discovery of the body, the description of the practical aspects of the wool business, and some humorous bits sprinkled throughout. The country-house atmosphere transplanted to the antipodes is a bit startling.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I guessed whodunit by page 20, so what was interesting was gradually learning about the victim as more people give their versions of what happened. She becomes less noble and more controlling as the story progresses. Perhaps like Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As with COLOUR SCHEME (see mini-review below) Ngaio Marsh used World War II as the setting for DIED IN THE WOOL. Roderick Alleyn from Scotland Yard was in New Zealand as part of the war effort, seeking out fifth columnists and espionage undermining the war effort.Mount Moon station on the South Island is being used by two young men as a base for developing a new anti-aircraft device, and the authorities believe that the blueprints have been leaked.Marsh uses the setting as a country house, closed venue, mystery. There can only be a certain number of suspects, because of the isolation of the station. Alleyn arrives at Mount Moon over 18 months after Flossie Rubrick's murder and in fact after the death of her husband from illness.One of the interesting ploys of the plot is that Alleyn assembles the main characters and gets them each to tell their opinions of the dead Flossie, who does not appear to have been a very nice character at all.It was interesting to hear of the things that were concerning the characters (and by extension the author) late in the War. Flossie is very conscious that she must contribute to the war effort, although her offers of assistance to the War Cabinet in London have been repulsed. Three of the young people at Mount Moon station have already been "over there". The preoccupation with the possible presence of enemy agents is also interesting.I thought there were a few things apart from the setting that dated the book. The style was a bit ponderous and the vocabulary contained words no longer in frequent use. The plot was very carefully crafted though and has worn well.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A great improvement on her previous book (Colour Scheme). Marsh was still constrained by the reality of writing a murder mystery in the middle of a war and her need (perhaps thrust upon her by her publishers) to make Alleyn appear in the book. The logic of the book collapses under any serious scrutiny. SPOILER -- as Alleyn's explanation at the end of the book makes clear there were only two people who were ever, serious likely candidates as spies, the authorities knew that, the "secret" at risk was vital and they already had an agent in place. There is no logical reason for them to have waited so long to act on their concerns or waited until a member of the household asked for intervention. Marsh is constrained, as are many of her characters, by an imagination limited by class and cultural assumptions.Given all those limitations the characters in this book are far more three dimensional than those of her previous book -- within the notable exception of the person "who did it".