Marsh, Ngaio - Death in a White Tie (1938)

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

Curiously reminiscent of Helen McCloy’s Dance of Death, this sophisticated and amusing tale of unfashionable blackmail in fashionable society (i.e., wallowing in titles) ranks highly among the early Ngaio Marshes. The author shows good management of the large cast of characters concerned in the murder by suffocation of Lord Robert Gospell in the taxi on the way home from Lady Carados’s daughter’s coming-out party, and the inquiries into their movements are as carefully orchestrated as the steps of a dance. Only the weak handling of the central clue, the naming of which at too early a juncture allows the alert reader to spot the villain, thereby robbing the tense and logical climax of its impact, keeps the book from a place in the first rank.

Having read Ngaio Marsh’s “Death in a White Tie” twice, the last time over 25 years ago, I decided to re-read it again, as it is the one Marsh book I liked a lot.

My first read of it, late 1960s or early 1970s, I loved it and thought it a masterpiece. Alas, no other of her books sampled satisfied me half as much, and I stopped reading her books after 5 or 6 of them. Then I re-read it in the early 1980s. when the Bantam Mystery Classics edition came out, and still liked the narration but found the murderer too obvious.

In between these reads, I re-read “A Man Lay Dead” and, as in the first time, found it entertaining but not much more. And I did read “Artists in Crime” (where Alleyn met Troy?), but found its mechanics hard to follow.

I am happy to say that I have enjoyed DIAWT a lot again, even though I remember both the perpetrator, the victim, and 1 other character very well. I do think it is Mash’s masterpiece, as far as detective stories go. Here some thoughts on why I like it:

1-       It has lots of dialogue, and of the witty type, too! Perhaps this is what makes it likable for me, as dialogue is what I love in Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner.

2-       It is very well clued. An odd thing about it is that in my 1980s re-read a clue was definitely misunderstood by me, which may be why I found the murderer obvious. This time, I fell into the same “trap” again, but realized that the problem is mine. More after the end as a note with spoiler. And there is one with a newspaper message which is very ingenious!

3-       The social atmosphere of the "coming out" season is marvelously handled! This I definitely did not appreciate the first 2 times.

4-       The characters are just lively, including a very sympathetic victim whose demise deserves the full retribution of the law.

5-       The Alleyn/Troy romance is well managed and unobtrusive.

 In short, a worthy re-read! For me, a great achievement of the Golden Age. This definitely makes me want to give Dame Ngaio another chance, although am afraid the results may disappoint me!

**************SPOILER**********************

It seemed to me twice that the content of the telephone call to Alleyn was a clue, as a doctor who is somewhere called a quack could be thought of as one who mixes some brews and the like. Thus, I thought that the perpetrator had overheard this and misunderstood it. Just shows my ignorance.

Enrique F. Bird

See also: http://deathcanread.blogspot.it/2014/05/ngaio-marsh-death-in-white-tie-1938.html