Light Thickens

Dame Ngaio Marsh was an actress, playwright, and theatre producer, now best known for her mystery novels. This murder mystery features Peregrine Jay, a theatre producer at London’s Dolphin Theatre.

Light Thickens was Marsh’s last book, published posthumously. The murder in the book takes place during a production of Macbeth.

What distinguishes this book is the author’s intense admiration for Shakespeare and the theatre. As you read, you find out what it is like to choose a cast and direct a play. Marsh richly describes the product of the director’s infinite decisions: the staging, the costumes, the roles, the props, the moods, the sounds, the effects. You are treated to the spectacle of rehearsals, staff meetings, and offstage show more interactions involving the theatre company—a range of personalities from the actors to the props manager to the lighting guy to the child actor’s mother.

Marsh’s description of the play worked like an enthusiastic college professor’s recommendation of a book. Although it takes a long time for the murder to happen, you don’t care because you are enjoying so much the commentary on the unfolding action of the play:

Duncan arrives at the castle. The sound of wings fluttering in the evening air. Peaceful. Then the squeal of pipes, the rumble of the great doors, the opening and the assembly of servants. Seyton. Lady Macbeth a scarlet figure at the top of the stairs. Don’t go in, don’t go in.

I couldn’t help but reread Macbeth at the same time, and of course that was a magnificent experience.

The murder was dark, gruesome, and dramatic, but the mystery itself, the suspenseful hunt for the murderer and motive, was not that great. By the end of the book, though, I was content to have the murder simply be the excuse for such a fine book’s existence. show less

"The Scottish play" is surrounded by superstition. But Peregrine Jay, owner of the Dolphin Theatre, is not prepared to indulge such beliefs in his company. Their production ends up being a monstrous success, and a long run seems assured. But then, one month into the run, "most sacrilegious murder"…

This was Ngaio Marsh's last book, and does she ever go out with a bang. The murder victim is beheaded, which is probably one of the more graphic demises featured in her mysteries, and the atmosphere of the theatre company is particularly well rendered. It might help that Macbeth is one of my favourite plays, and I worked backstage on a production many years ago---so I was predisposed to like it anyway. But the production sounded fantastic show more and I would have loved to see it myself (well, not the fatal performance obviously). The mystery itself kind of unravelled a bit for me at the end, as I think I missed a deduction or two, but overall this is a Marsh book I can definitely see myself rereading. A new favourite!

I recommend this if you like Macbeth and/or reading about the theatre. And if you're looking to try one of Marsh's theatre-based mysteries, this is a great one. Easily the best of its type I've read. show less

Summary: Set once again at the Dolphin theatre as Peregrine Jay stages Macbeth, a play surrounded by superstition, a production plagued by macabre practical jokes, and the real murder of the title character discovered just after the play’s climactic scene, with Alleyn in the front row.

This is the last Chief Inspector Alleyn mystery by Ngaio Marsh, completed in 1982 when she was 86 and just weeks before her passing. She returns to the scene of an earlier murder, the Dolphin theatre, as the accomplished Peregrine Jay undertakes one of the most audacious productions, and one surrounded by superstition–Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The superstition is that it is ill luck for any production members to mention the play by name or speak its show more lines elsewhere than in rehearsal or performance.

Jay has assembled an brilliant, but eccentric cast. The title character is played Dougal MacDougal, a true Scot and a vain one at that. Both he and his opposite, Simon Morten, who plays Macduff are real-life rivals for the affections of Margaret Mannering, who plays Lady Macbeth. Gaston Sears, who plays Seyton, has an obsession with arms, including the Claidheamh Mòr (emphatically not a claymore according to him), a wickedly sharp two edged sword used in the climactic fight between Macbeth and Macduff. He choreographs and trains them in the fight.

Banquo is played by Bruce Barrabell, a union leader and participant in fringe causes, and has a connection to the child actor, William Smith, who plays Macbeth’s son. William’s father was an insane murderer who killed by decapitation. The most superstitious is Nina Gaythorne as Lady Macduff, although Rangi, a Maori actor and one of the Three Witches rivals her.

A series of incidents arouse superstitions during rehearsals. A costume decapitated head is found in a bag during a rehearsal, and later under a covered platter. A warning message about William and his father is found on the manager’s typewriter. Then the opening weeks of the performance come off flawlessly to acclaim. That is, until Alleyn has front row seats, compliments of the house, after having provided security for some royals attending an earlier performance, and realizes as the climactic scene concludes that something has gone horribly wrong and Dougal MacDougal is really dead, and in the manner of his denouement as Macbeth.

It’s obvious that a number could have a motive and Marsh keeps us guessing until the end while Alleyn methodically interviews witnesses. Yet there is something off in the chronology. There wasn’t enough time for any of the suspects to commit the murder…or was there?

One of the most interesting themes is that of not charging children with the sins of their parents. There are several turns during which William is allowed to shine as his own person, and to be encouraged with the prospects of his future rather than haunted by his father’s past acts. In this, Marsh invites us to heed the better angels of our nature, and to believe the best of others.

Whether this was one of Marsh’s best, I will leave to others. All I will say is that she concluded her last act well. show less

Investigation of the Scottish Play
Review of the Felony & Mayhem paperback edition (2016) of the 1982 original

New Zealander Ngaio Marsh earned her "Damery" not through her lifetime of writing but through her promotion of theatre. It is fitting then that the swan song of her Scotland Yard CID detective Roderick Alleyn should be wrapped up in the world of theatre as well. In Light Thickens, Alleyn is even on hand to witness the crime as a member of the audience seeing a performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which is known among superstitious theatre folk as The Scottish Play as it is considered a bad omen to say the name of the play or to even quote it offstage.

A considerable amount of the plot is spent in observing and describing the show more actors and rehearsals as they prepare for their performance of the play at the Dolphin Theatre. The setting also marks a return to the place and some of the characters of Death at the Dolphin (1966) (also published as Killer Dolphin in some markets). This aspect may not be of interest to all mystery fans, as quite a lot of time is spent dissecting character motivations and the most effective theatrical effects for the play. Personally I found it all the more fascinating for this extra behind the scenes detail of the theatrical world. The opening witches scene with the 3 characters plucking body parts off of a hanged man on a gibbet and then flying off into the air (actually a jump off a riser to mattresses below) sounded particularly atmospheric. It brought back memories of the most dramatic Macbeth that I have ever seen, which was one by Robert Lepage at Toronto's Hart House Theatre where the three witches opened the play by dropping from the rafters while suspended upside down and reciting their lines from the same position.

My reading of Light Thickens was part of my project to read or re-read some of the classics from the Golden Age of Crime. It also made me eager to see live theatre once more when the situation of the current pandemic has stabilized. show less

Director Peregrine Jay and his management team have put together a superior cast for a run of Macbeth at the Dolphin Theatre. Tension builds as the cast rehearses for several weeks before opening night, with a prankster taking advantage of the superstition surrounding the play to sow discord. A few weeks into the play’s run, the unthinkable happens, and one of the actors is found dead at the end of the performance. Scotland Yard’s Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn is in the audience that night. Despite being on the scene when the murder was committed, Alleyn is as baffled as anyone. Alleyn knows as well as anyone that this isn’t the first time that death has visited the Dolphin.

Marsh takes her time setting the stage for the show more murder, which doesn’t occur until more than halfway through the book. She treats readers a Cliffsnotes-like summary of Macbeth, with much focus on the interpretation and staging of the play during rehearsals. How the reader feels about Shakespeare may influence how much the reader enjoys this book. show less

This discard from the public library was a serendipitous choice. I was glad I decided to take this enjoyable novel home with me. This, the last work of Dame Ngaio, was a murder mystery involving a theater company presenting a production of Macbeth. For all of Part 1, the book showed in detail how a theatrical production is put together from its earliest stages of reading, blocking, lighting, props management, through rehearsals, to final, polished performance. We glimpse some of a director's ideas of how to interpret the play through acting. The cast chime in with their thoughts. All through the novel, the superstitions concerning ill-luck surrounding the Scottish play are emphasized and foreshadow the murder and decapitation of the show more leading actor, which don't occur until Part 2. The deed is done with a claidheamh-mor [claymore] used in the Macbeth/Macduff fight to the death.

The novel did bog down, but picked up again with the murder and Chief Superintendent Alleyn's investigation. Before the murder there were odd occurrences. One of the actors termed them "schoolboy pranks". There were an accident involving the director, Peregrine Jay; a fake head in the King's [Banquo's] room; a head in the meat dish in the banquet scene; a rat in the bag of one of the Witches where they keep the items for their curses and potions. Alleyn just happens to be in the audience when the murder occurs, so he takes over the investigation. He has the cast reenact parts of the play to establish timing and alibis. The case stumps him, until he gets an idea of 'whodunnit' from a clue his son inadvertently supplies, through a game with the boy's brother and the boy actor who plays Macduff's son.

Each character had perhaps one distinguishing characteristic. None was what I'd call 'deep.' The author wrote crisp dialogue, and I thought the book well plotted. I thought it strange to hold off on crime and investigation, so far into the story, but I did like the description on producing a play and insights into Macbeth. This book has led me to want to investigate more of this author's work. show less

Light Thickens, published in 1982, was Ngaio Marsh's last murder mystery featuring the detective Roderick Alleyn. (I'm not sure when it is supposed to be set - most of the her mysteries are set around the time they were written, but if that was the case for this one, Alleyn would be in his 80s and surely he'd have retired by then? Not that it matters.)

It is about a production of Macbeth at the Dolphin theatre (which features in Death at the Dolphin; apparently this is set 20 years later). The slow brimming tensions of the production are simultaneously fascinating and mundane.

Because the murder occurs so late in the book, there's not room for the same exploration of character and motive in many of Marsh's other mysteries. The murder is show more solved with comparative ease.
Technically, it is a clever mystery, but in terms of the characters' psychology, I found it disappointing. There isn't much of a web of secrets to uncover; most of the characters' relationships with each other are surprisingly straightforward. I suspect the story loses something by focusing so much on Peregrine, the director, and his wife, who despite Peregrine's directorial powers, are observers more than actual participants in the unfolding drama. There's no real tension there.

That said, it seems appropriate that Marsh's final mystery was set in a theatre - moreover, a theatre staging Macbeth.

(After I read this, I decided it wasn't worth going out of my way to look for the few Marsh mysteries I haven't yet read... but then someone recommended Vintage Murder and I changed my mind about that.) show less