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Night at the Vulcan
Night at the Vulcan
Night at the Vulcan
Ebook279 pages4 hours

Night at the Vulcan

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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“The theatre plays backdrop to romance and murder . . . Good reading.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Newly arrived from New Zealand and in need of funds, Martyn Tarne takes a job as a dresser to the Vulcan Theater’s leading lady. Along with a paycheck, this also provides her with a ringside seat to the backstage circus—and the eventual murder that occurs on opening night. Inspector Alleyn is soon called to solve the case and put a stop to all the drama . . .

“To my thinking, no other writer evokes ‘the incense of the playhouse’ or describes the technical details of stage production with the degree of authenticity that Dame Ngaio achieved in novels like Enter a Murderer, Killer Dolphin, Night at the Vulcan and Light Thickens.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times

“The brilliant Ngaio Marsh ranks with Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.” —Times Literary Supplement

Also published under the title Opening Night
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 15, 2012
ISBN9781937384500
Night at the Vulcan
Author

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 Night at the Vulcan

Rating: 3.7847681920529803 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm fondest of mysteries where the characters are complex and their interactions more interesting than just trying to guess whodunit. This book delivers a rich set of theater people and some interesting looks at the theater behind the scenes.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Marsh's novels about the theatre are overwrought and histrionic. It seems weird that she could write in this vein about a milieu and subject with which she was so familiar. One of the actors rapes his wife, and the teenage protagonist deflects the sexual overtures of the night watchman at the theatre. All of this is somewhat obliquely or ambiguously described, but no intelligent adult could miss it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The bulk of this book is not about the murder that justifies its inclusion within the Alleyn series but rather with the background against which the murder takes place. Unlike previous books I felt I understood who must be the murder not because of painstakingly distributed clues. Marsh paints her characters and interactions more carefully and more believably than in many of her books. The exception, in my opinion, is the portrait of the character to actually commits the murder. In that case either Marsh felt she could not more clearly paint his/her portrait without giving the conclusion away or because she herself finds it difficult to get inside the mind of such a murderer.Marsh so clearly enjoyed writing about actors and the theater that one wonders if she was dissuaded by her publishers from doing so and therefore found herself forced to place murders within theaters and the theater community in order to write about what she found most interesting.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An unsatisfactory mystery with an equally unsatisfactory romance subplot. A young woman emigrates to England, eager for a career in the theater. Down to a few coins, she miraculously comes across The Vulcan Theatre, which is in desperate need of a dresser. One thing leads to another in a most improbable set of coincidences, and the murder mystery is on. Not Marsh’s best effort.

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Night at the Vulcan - Ngaio Marsh

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