The solution to the murder is just really unbelievable. It even gives a specific timeframe that's so ridiculously short plus relies on a bunch of people not noticing a bunch of things. At the end they even admit there's very little to pin it down on the murderer. The secret society subplot is goofy and doesn't make any sense either. Oh and there's a romance subplot too which is totally unconvincing and pointless but then they always are in mystery novels. There were a few sections which I had to read multiple times to understand because they were pointlessly complicated.

Overall the writing is serviceable and I read through like yeah sure whatever this is fine so maybe 2 stars but I'm rating 1 cause mystery novels hang together on a convincing conclusion and I didn't see it at all. Nothing else about it is interesting enough for me to care - no funny dialogue, no stand out characters. So yeah.

Oh also it uses the n word once. And what universe is it that someone can *remove another person's trousers* in the middle of a normal social get together and everyone just acts totally casual about it? This bullying is even given as a motive for murder later but when it happens I had to read a few times to be like what??? why

Some of the inconsistencies

What's with the whole secret society? They're a Russian one but 2 of the key figures are a Pole (who they murder) and someone who only speak English and Swedish. Why are they a communist society if they're centuries old? Why did the Pole give the knife to the victim in the first place? Oh and the Pole is referred to as speaking Russian and not Polish - why is he called a Pole?? How did the society even find out the Pole had given away the knife? When the society all get arrested, why did Alleyn come through the chimney when all the other police apparently got in fine at the same time by just walking in? I think he was hidden the whole time? I guess? Which is uh. Sounds very uncomfortable. What were the secret society even doing? They were arrested for sedition and treason but they didn't seem to do anything except murder each other. They're a big red herring subplot but none of their actions really make sense.

With the murder, the murderer is specifically allotted *exactly 8 seconds* to get from the bathroom to downstairs, do the murder and turn the lights off. His method relies on the victim being in *exactly* the right place to get stabbed (he could never have turned around, he couldn't have moved away from the stairs). In those 8 seconds, after apparently sliding down a banister, he got the knife in EXACTLY the right spot between bones that was considered so impressive that the murderer needed to know anatomy well. His alibi was 2 people thinking he was in the bath but as well as those 8 seconds he also got out the bath to get a glove from his wife's dressing room. That would take some time. Surely someone would have noticed the splashing had stopped? Bath noises are actually pretty distinctive - you can usually tell when someone's getting out. And there's door noises, footsteps too. In fact, the servant who comes into give Nigel shaving water would surely have seen him on the landing? The timescale is even less than the 8 seconds allotted and it seems extremely unlikely. He'd also have dripped water EVERYWHERE! I can't believe nobody noticed. (Realised iirc he actually wasn't in the bath. He was just pretending to me. Even then splashing about would get you wet and you'd drip. And the noises are noticeably different when you're not in with your whole body. Ah well) The attempts in the scene before the murder to make it work just... don't. He also decided to do this plan even though he only had a single glove - he tried to avoid leaving prints but completely failed. Surely his wife would have thought "oh I'm sure I put those gloves in the drawer" too and realised something was up - but she doesn't; Alleyn actually misleads here by claiming he found one in the hall so the wife doesn't question it.

When Alleyn does a totally pointless "reconstruction" (he asks Nigel to play the murderer and then goes off at him when he shows a slight hesitancy... before asking the person he knows to be the murderer to do it... and him doing it was essential to his terrible plan... so why attack Nigel??)
the murderer is in no way revealed except for Alleyn accusing him and him saying "damn you".
Which he didn't need to do and would hardly hold up in court.

Also the motive of "oh he was mad at the victim for flirting with his wife" seems kind of weird given he never even attempted to stop it in any way at all and apparently let it go on for years and years. The victim seems like an utter prick by the way. Can't pretend I felt any sympathy towards him.

There's probably more but just. blurgh. Bad. Maybe also I'm stupid! I don't know ( )

At Sir Hubert Handesley's country house party, five guests have gathered for the uproarious parlor game of "Murder." Yet no one is laughing when the lights come up on an actual corpse, the good-looking and mysterious Charles Rankin. Scotland Yard's Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives to find a complete collection of alibis, a missing butler, and an intricate puzzle of betrayal and sedition in the search for the key player in this deadly game

Cant believe I've read so many Alleyn books, but have taken this long to get to read #1.

This book starts with Nigel Bathgate, junior reporter and ongoing stalwart of the series, being invited to a country house weekend with his cousin. There he meets Angela, and a number of other characters, and during a game of "murders" finds his cousin murdered with a knife in his back.

Alleyn arrives to investigate, still young and an Inspector (somehow morphing into the better known CHIEF inspector near the end of the book. The other usual cast - such as Fox - dont make it into this first novel. There is a little diversion (Maguffin) over the Russian community in London, which allows for the dagger to be used in the murder.

Alleyn is a little moodier than in later novels, still being young and possibly not fleshed out as in later novels. Not sure I would have continued with the series had I come across this book first. ( )

Does exactly what it says on the label - proper English manor house mystery.

I rather like Allen. I may read one or two more to see how his character fleshes out. ( )

A quick read, a fairly standard English Country House mystery. Ngaio Marsh's writing has some verve to it, and the characters of Nigel and Angela were some fun as Bright Young Things who assist Inspector Alleyne in figuring out whodunnit. But even allowing for the fact that what is cliché now was fresh once, A Man Lay Dead is a deeply silly book. The howdunnit just didn't work, and Alleyne's procedural methods had me scratching my head and wondering if any part of his case would stand up in court. I know that the Thirties were a different time—but that different? Then you add in a lot of classism and the xenophobic subplot that went nowhere involving the religious-yet-also-somehow-Bolshevik centuries-old secret society that is hinted to engage in (presumably gay?) orgies and/or castrations and sometimes immolates its members in locked houses, and you have me rolling my eyes a bit as I close the book. ( )

A Man Lay Dead
by Ngaio Marsh

#books #reviews #mystery

My Rating : 3/5

This is my first book by Ngaio Marsh and I am not over the top excited to pick her next one. I have read multiple great works of Agatha Christie and though they are often compared for who is a better writer, for me, so far, Miss Christie wins hands down.

About this book, thought the plot is getting well laid out and the narrative is getting constructed rather well but then the element of Russian mafia is introduced which not only derailed the whole plot but was utterly irrelevant to the mystery at hand. It was a ploy to add to the number of pages by the author or so I have come to feel having finished the book. ( )