Money in the Morgue
Ngaio Marsh and Stella Duffy
Collins Crime Club $29.99
Ngaio Marsh, the Queen of Kiwi crime, famously wrote a number of Inspector Alleyn crime novels. Marsh left just one unfinished when she died.
London-based Kiwi, Stella Duffy, in a supreme act of ventriloquism, has completed it for her.
You might be prompted to ask, ‘‘Why on earth would she resurrect that old war-horse?’’ A very good question. I cannot offer a clear answer.
Marsh’s crime is firmly rooted in the 1930s.
It is a world of clear moral and class distinctions, even in our own equitable society. It is a world where a group of shady characters can be marooned in a Canterbury convalescence hospital in the foothills of the Southern Alps.
Conveniently, all power and contact is cut off from the outside.
Even more astonishingly, an inspector from Scotland Yard just happens to be there when a robbery and murder occur.
Marsh only wrote the first three chapters, with a very sketchy outline for the rest of the novel.
It reflects her own society – Anglocentric, prim and deeply racist. Ma¯ori are beyond peripheral in the original, and one of Duffy’s key tasks has been to obliterate some of Marsh’s oversights.
Duffy’s assumption of Marsh’s voice is extraordinary. The book reads like a 30s crime novel.
Policemen are always polite, soldiers are cheeky, nobody swears and sex is way beyond the pale.
Or, in this case, out of sight. Duffy catches precisely Marsh’s own interest in Shakespeare – her Inspector Alleyn alludes to an actor in Shakespeare’s company. Playful references to the Bard abound throughout the text. It becomes more fun to Bard-spot than it does to try to solve the mystery.
And fun may be the answer to the question above. Clearly, there is no point in recreating a stilted and myopic vision of the past – even if that world ever existed.
The plot veers from the farcical to the pantomimic on occasions.
The moment when the wrong body turns up, delivered by a more than tipsy porter (shades of Macbeth ),isa pure joy.
Alleyn’s English reserve amuses in its diplomatic quaintness.
A style further away from NYPD you would struggle to imagine. Occasionally, Duffy gets too modern. In a discussion with the only Ma¯ori in the book, a private in a trio of military types, a sergeant observes, ‘‘You sound like one of our Ma¯ori lads, Inspector, always on about the land and how it’s a living thing, they are.’’
It jars in the cosy world of 30s sensibilities.
So, fun is the key to this piece of archaeological ventriloquism.
Like sliding into a warm bath, it will soothe you for a while. Then the water will chill. Perfect for a wet afternoon in winter.