Artists in Crime

In Dorothy Sayer's "Gaudy Night" Harriet Vane, a detective novelist, is struggling with the plot of her latest book "Death twixt wind and water". She discusses it with Peter Wimsey who suggests she leaves off writing a purely puzzle book and gives her characters real human emotions and motivations. I suspect that "Artists in Crime" may be Ngaio Marsh's equivalent. Although the murder itself is bizarre, in allowing Alleyn to fall properly in love she finally shows him as a fully rounded human being with real emotions behind the facetious facade and the book is all the better for it. I also love the introduction of Troy, and Marsh's real feel for the art milieu in which the book is set. Beautiful descriptions too. Her first fully realised show more book. show less

Roderick Alleyn is returning from a year-long vacation in New Zealand and strikes up an acquaintance with the famed artist Agatha Troy, who is also returning to that part of the world. He is smitten but feels like he's made a fool of himself, even if she did paint a very nice portrait of him. He resolves to put their acquaintance behind him and enjoy the last few days of his vacation with his mother, only to be called out to a case involving the death of an artist's model. The studio where the model works is owned by none other than Agatha Troy. This will certainly be an interesting case…

This might be my favourite Ngaio Marsh so far. The real joy lies in the interactions between Alleyn and his crew, and Alleyn and his mother, who is show more adorable. They all have such a good rapport and are quite affectionate in their teasing. The case itself is also interesting. I guessed one element of the solution, but not until the end when Alleyn was in the process of explaining whodunnit anyway. The story moves along fairly quickly, and the very end is well done indeed. Definitely recommended if you're looking to try a Marsh. show less

Summary: A murder occurs at the studio of artist Agatha Troy, who Alleyn had met on his voyage back to England; the beginning in fits and starts of a romance while Alleyn seeks to solve the crime.

It isn’t a promising beginning. An untimely interruption onboard ship followed by a brusque brushoff. Nevertheless artist Agatha Troy paints a striking likeness of Alleyn which he presents to his mother upon his return to England. It turns out Lady Alleyn lives but a few miles from Agatha Troy’s home and studio Tatter’s End House in Bossicote. Troy has turned the back garden into a studio for students who want to train under her, living at her house.

One of the students, Watt Hatchett, is a rough-around-the-edges Australian Troy has show more brought back and is sponsoring, recognizing his talent. The rest are a rag-tag collection of characters. Francis Ormerin is an aloof student from Paris. Cedric Malmsley is a bearded poseur, pretending to more talent than he has yet to evidence. Phillida Lee is a country girl turned Bohemian. Basil Pilgrim has the (mis)fortune to be the son of a strict religionist peer. Valmai Seacliff is the beauty who knows it, drawing the men to her like flies. Katti Bostock is the gruff but accomplished painter who is Troy’s roommate. She hired the beautiful but temperamental model, Sonia Gluck who is romantically involved with a sculptor, Garcia, extremely talented but without morals.

Alleyn’s reunion with his mother is cut short when Sonia is found murdered. About a week earlier, there was an experiment to make the scene she was posing, in which the figure posed has been impaled on a knife driven through a throne, concealed by a drape. A couple of students drove an actual knife through the draped seat so that it would stab the figure in the heart. It was all forgotten until everyone returned from weekend activities to set up the scene and resume their work. Sonia, who had a hard time keeping a pose and has incurred the wrath of nearly everyone at some point, is forcefully positioned by Valmai. She cries out, jerks, and passes out. When others come to help make her comfortable, they discover that she is impaled on the knife, hidden under the drape. And she dies. And Garcia has disappeared, supposedly on a walking tour.

All of them, including Troy are suspects. It is obvious there is a chemistry between Alleyn and Troy, yet the awkward questions and investigation that must occur do not provide the most conducive atmosphere for a romance. What is striking is that Troy is portrayed as strong, self-sufficient and self-possessed. It is Alleyn who comes off awkward, even apologetic. This is very different from, say, Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey (although Harriet is also a strong character).

But this doesn’t prevent Alleyn and his team of Fox, Bailey, and his journalist and Watson figure, Nigel Bathgate, from uncovering the truth. Young Pilgrim isn’t as pure as he seems. Malmsley is an opium user who isn’t above copying a famous scene, pretending it is his own work. Bathgate discovers through a sometime roommate of Sonia’s the sordid game she and Garcia have been playing. And who was it who had a late night meeting with Garcia? And Marsh lays a few surprises at the end, just when we think we know who the real killer is.

This “queen of crime” gives us a strong female counterpart to Alleyn, and casts aspersions on the gender pretensions of others. The portrayal of Valmai shows a disapproval of the glamourous female and it is only as Phillida stops pretending so much to be Bohemian that she becomes interesting. The unrefined Watt Hatchett, the only male favorably portrayed, helps bring this out. Ormerin, Malmsley, Pilgrim, and Garcia all come off badly. Today, we would call her best characters authentic, the ones who ring true.

The plot is straightforward, with enough twists to keep you on your toes, the characters interesting, the repartee between Alleyn and Bathgate sparkles, and Marsh leaves us all wondering whether and how the romance with Troy will go. show less

A solidly written golden age murder mystery; and one I much enjoyed. The murder was original and the detection was as fair as the detection club could have asked for. I quite liked both Roderick Allen and Agatha Troy as well as his various partners.

Still I wasn't left with a huge desire to read more. It felt quite genre, and quite a bit like a mix of Strong Poison and Five Red Herrings without Sayer's linguistic playfulness or literary style. Which, to be honest, is more of a personal preference than any real reflection on the writing.

Agatha Troy runs her own artists studio school, and her new class of proteges have barely arrived before tensions arise. Then the model is killed right in front of the class, and suddenly a questionable murder method from a book illustration is proven to indeed be effective.

This was an enjoyable, cosy whodunnit with plenty of clues for the reader to consider and red herrings to keep you on your toes. The main character's were likable and fleshed out nicely. The suspect group were a much more mixed bunch, with plenty of artistic eccentricities and pretensions on show, as well as a couple of alpha females and some not-so-likable men.

Hatchett's Australian accent was overdone with an irritating amount of colloquisms, and I would have show more liked to see more depth in the budding relationship between Alleyn and Troy (although it seems she may be a reoccuring character, so this depth may be built over time), but these are the only criticisms I can think of for this book. A nice way to spend rainy afternoon. show less

Inspector Alleyn is called in to investigate the murder, and finds among the suspects the artist he fell for on a recent cruise. They act tortured and repressed at each other in between scenes of Alleyn & co measuring marks on windowsills and the like. As always with Marsh, a large portion of this book is given over to seemingly endless natterings between characters about who was ~psychologically~ capable of murder. Eventually the murder is solved, but I'd lost all interest in the case by that point.

Putting aside the rather uninspired mystery, I was bothered that Alleyn seems set up as a perfect paragon, so much wiser and classier and richer and bluer blooded than all the rest. I was particularly bothered by this because he outright show more SAYS to his lady-love-the-suspect that she's totally not a suspect, and the extent of his investigation into her guilt is to have an underling check her alibi. I'd put up with that kind of favoritism from an amateur detective, but not the official investigator! show less

Knife Out
Review of the Fontana paperback edition (1982) of the 1938 original

Ngaio Marsh sets this murder mystery in the world of artists and does capture the obsessions and egocentrism of the artistic temperament very well. It was actually better at that than Dorothy L. Sayer's Five Red Herrings which obsesses more over train schedules and conveying Scottish dialect in print than the actual art and artist suspects involved.

This is part of my current re-read projects of works from the Golden Age of Crime of which many are still in my collection after first being read in the 1970s and 1980s.