Marsh, Ngaio - Death at the Bar (1940)

Review by Nick Fuller

5/5

One of Marsh’s most tightly-knit jobs. The victim is a famous K.C., poisoned with cyanide in the private taproom of a Devon inn while taking part in a demonstration of darts-throwing. Plenty of good circumstantial evidence leads to the supposition of an impossible crime. Alleyn, called in by both the publican and the local police, does a splendid and fast (twenty-four hours) job of discovering the murderer, whose identity is an object lesson in diverting suspicion from the most likely person. Method ingeniously simple, and hence convincing: a neat job. Two other features confirm the book’s status as a classic: the virtuoso display of logic at the end, including a delightful false solution propounded by an amusing Chief Constable, and the poisoning of Fox.