Dead Water

Summary: A spring on an island celebrated for its healing powers becomes the site of the murder.

Wally Trehern is the laughing stock of his school, what with the warts all over his hand. He lives on a small island, connected at low tide by a causeway to the English coast, making his ostracism even more painful. One day, he flees to a spring and sees a lady dressed in green who bids him wash his hands in the spring. Miraculously his warts disappear. Word spreads. The doctor, Bob Mane, the teacher, Jenny Williams, and the minister, Reverend Carstairs are supportive but cautious. Others are less so. Elspeth Cost, a spinster owner of a gift shop claims that the spring cured her asthma. Major Barrimore and his wife Margaret, owners of the show more island hotel stand to benefit, as do the Treherns.

Two years later, the island has been transformed into a tourist attraction–the hotel spruced up, the gift shop selling statues of the Green Lady, and the Treherns setting up a museum. The spring is gated and admission charged. Elspeth Cost even plans a Green Lady festival, creates tacky poetry for the occasion. It all works. Tourists and cure seekers come. Some claim cures.

But Emily Pride disapproves of the whole enterprise. She has inherited the island from her sister, and she is troubled by the falsely raised hopes and the commercialization of the spring and the island taking place. She communicates her intent to close it down and plans a visit. And the threats begin. She mentions it to Alleyn, who she had taught his French. He’s on holiday but when the threats intensify and she is injured by a rock thrown and endangered by a trip wire strung by the ledge overlooking the spring, where she was accustomed to sit, holding her black “brolly.” Alleyn decides he must interrupt his holiday to look after her and try to get her off the island.

She agrees to let the festival proceed though it is routed with rain. The next morning Miss Pride posts notices early at the spring about her intent to close the enterprise down amid another rain. An hour later, Alleyn is out walking by the spring when he spies a body face down along with a black brolly.

The resolution of the murder hinges on the classic devices of crime fiction: timelines, alibis, and the secrets and motives of the people who could be suspects–everyone from Wally Trehern to Major Barrimore. The climax is exciting with Alleyn pursuing the murderer and engaging in a struggle on a launch amid a rip-roaring storm.

Sometimes, Marsh’s characters can seem stock, as do some in this case like the minister and Wally’s drunken mother. Emily Pride is a stubbornly delightful eighty-something with attitude, Elspeth Cost is a combination entrepreneur and sexually frustrated dingbat. There is a heartwarming romance subplot between Wally’s caring teacher Jenny Williams and Patrick Barrimore, the innkeeper’s son. All the elements of a good story are here and come together well. show less

When local boy Wally Trehern's warts are suddenly cured, he explains that a lady in green appeared to him and told him that the village spring would wash them away. Then the general shop owner claims that her asthma has also been cured by the spring. The sleepy island village is soon a pilgrimage destination for those seeking cures from their ailments and the business owners and little church are making good money for the first time in their lives. But with the death of her sister, ownership of the entire island passes to Miss Emily Pride, a stubborn old woman who happens to be the former tutor of Inspector Alleyn of Scotland Yard. Her insistence that all the commercial exploitation of the spring and the desperate people who visit must show more stop makes her the enemy to the locals.

Even though I'd seen this particular episode of "The Alleyn Mysteries", it didn't reduce my enjoyment of the book. Marsh is an excellent writer. show less

Good cozy mystery. I had some trouble keeping track of all the characters, perhaps because I was distracted. I always enjoy Ngaio Marsh and this was no exception.

One of Marsh's later mysteries that takes place in a secluded resort town/island. There is a colorful cast of characters but in the end I did not feel they were that well drawn and fell a little flat. Despite figuring out who the murderer was about halfway through, I still found the final explanation and denouement unsatisfying and rushed. Not one of her most successful attempts, a little too formulaic.

Of the two crime "queens" who were still writing in the 1960s and 70s, Marsh's later books beat Agatha Christie's hands-down (at least Dame Ngaio could still string together a well-written sentence!). But in my opinion most of their later works (with the exception of Marsh's last book, the oddly genre-bending Light Thickens) bear the show more hallmarks of a golden age in decline, killed by its own success and doomed to eternal repetition of the same few plot/character elements. show less

This is a rather slow-paced novel, taking a while to establish the setting of Portcarrow and the premise of the "miracle spring" and the tourist trade that has sprung (har!) up around it. It probably also did not help that the blurb on the back cover of my copy (a Bantam Books paperback) provided the wrong name of the murder victim! This meant I spent the whole book wondering when the person would be murdered and it didn't end up happening. But that is not Ngaio Marsh's fault necessarily. The mystery itself is all right. Not her best but certainly not her worst.

In this 23d of a series, Roderick Alleyn is called by his elderly friend Miss Emily for advice about hos she should proceed with her inheritance of land and inn in a small village. Two years earlier a young mentally challenged boy had been cured of a bad case of warts by submerging his hands into a spring. Cqpitalizing on fame from this event, the village has become drastically changed and commercialized, so much that Miss Emily insists that the village return to its pre-"miracle" character. This prompts many threats and actual danger for Miss Emily, and an eventual murder. Alleyn, who is supposed to be on vacation with his wife, must travel to the village to sort things out.

I thought the setting, an English seaside village, cut off from the mainland at high tide, was more interesting than the mystery per se. We also get a glimpse into Inspector Alleyn personal life. Good read.