At the moment I´m moving through this book at a snails pace. Mainly because I´ve been barely at home and when I´m at home, I´m so exhausted I just want to go to bed. And the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille needs a bit of effort from the reader, something which I cannot come up with right now. So this book will go on the backburner for a couple of days. 

And now I have to figure out if I´m in the mood for a non-fiction book (Serhii Plokhy´s "Chernobyl") or a (christmas related) mystery as an in between read. 

Book: Read a book about tolerance, or outside your comfort zone, or set in Paris (seat of UNESCO).

I´m just really in the mood for a reread of this book, which is as weird as it is brilliant.

Book: Read a book about tolerance, or outside your comfort zone, or set in Paris (seat of UNESCO).

I've had Ngaio Marsh on my TBR pile for a few years now, and kept putting her off because the titles I have are all related to acting (Marsh herself being a former actress), and the stage and it's behind-the-scenes drama doesn't interest me much.  Still, she's a Golden Age writer of note, and I was determined to give the books a try.

I got off to a rough start; Golden Age writers generally have a very different writing style from most of today's fiction.  More staccato, more concise, and it takes me a period of adjustment to find the rhythm.  Enter a Murderer felt like that adjustment period took longer than usual, but once I found the groove, it was easy reading.

Alleyn has pale shades of Holmes about him; he's a thinking man's detective, and he likes to hold the clues close.  This was not a fair play mystery, though it was written smack in the middle of the era of Fair Play.  Still, I liked Alleyn well enough and I quite liked his sidekick, Nigel Bathgate.

The plot was, perhaps, trying too hard to be clever.  By the end (after the reveal) it's obvious what Marsh was aiming for, and it was an admirable goal, but achieving it required a fair amount of convoluted plotting.  I don't know if it didn't work for me because it was overdone, or because it required too much time with the secondary characters, all stereotypical stage actors of one sort or another, and hence, unreliable in the extreme.  Either way, I was unable to buy the motive, although I did enjoy the ride for the most part.

I have a few other Marsh books on the TBR pile, and I'll happily read them; there's enough here to peak my interest, if not quite enough to spark my devotion.

The crime was instantaneous and unpremeditated, and the murderer was left staring from the weapon on the table to the dead man in the shadow of the tapestry curtains, not apprehensive, not yet afraid, but incredulous and dumb.

This is not a spoiler. This is the start of the book.

Unlike other murder mysteries, the book starts with the murder and even shows us who the murderer is. The suspense element in this story is based on whether the murderer gets caught in the story. 

In a way, this was a lot like an episode of Columbo, where we also see the solution to the murder mystery at the start of the episode, then watch Columbo drive the murder nuts with questions until they trip up in their own web of lies. 

Unlike in Columbo, there is no clever detective driving the murder to confession, and instead we, the readers, are fully relying on the Gray family to find out the truth. Unfortunately, most of the family are rather unlikable.

“A charming family débâcle,” Olivia agreed.

“Well, you must acknowledge this, Eustace. We do do things thoroughly; no skulking in odd corners for the Grays, once they get started.”

And yet! I really enjoyed this book. It took a while to get the story going and to get used to the characters and structure of the story, but there is something incredible thrilling in watching this train wreck and hoping that someone will slam on the brakes before an innocent person is hanged. 

He thought, “If it’s coming to that, let me be out of the way. I can’t face it.” But at the thought of a self-inflicted death his meagre spirit recoiled. No, not that. Not that. Nor arrest either. Nor, if he could help it, suspicion or exposure. Somehow there must be a way of ensuring silence. His thoughts whirled like a wheel of fire in his distorted brain: Greta—Father—Brand—Eustace—Exposure—Bankruptcy—Shame—Failure—Obscurity—Greta… and so on, round and round.

…Up and down, up and down, while, like the wheels of a railway carriage, beating out a monotonous rhythm, his thoughts took possession of him, expressing themselves harshly, unmusically. Up and down—down and out—no way out—out and down— And so on, until someone came seeking him, and he had to mask his terror and join the community once again.

I don't know why I couldn't get into this book last year, but it just goes to show that sometimes it is just the wrong time to read a particular book. 

I'm really enjoying Meredith's writing style this time around.