Reading the Detectives discussion

Our November 2018, eleventh challenge title, is Death and the Dancing Footman, first published in 1941.

A winter weekend ends in snowbound disaster in a novel which remains a favourite among Marsh readers.

It begins as an entertainment: eight people, many of them adversaries, gathered for a winter weekend by a host with a love for theatre. It ends in snowbound disaster. Everyone has an alibi - and a motive as well. But Roderick Alleyn soon realizes that it all hangs on Thomas, the dancing footman…

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

I quite liked this one, there was a bit of a twist as the person who.was murdered wasn't the one I was expecting. Some good characters, but Alleyn appearing so late is a bit of a drawback.

I liked this better than some of the others in the series. The fact that Alleyn didn't show up until well over half the book, did not really matter, and was good to see how he improvised due to the lack of Bailey

I did feel sorry for poor Alleyn, having his Christmas holiday interrupted by murder.

There were a lot of different feuds/dislikes going on in this novel. Which did you think worked well and which less so?

We had the Compline family, with sons William and Nicholas, plus Chloris, engaged to William and previously engagd to Nicholas. We had Jonathan Royal's cousin, Hersey Amblington, who owned a beauty salon and Madame Elise, with her competing salon. There is plastic surgeon, Dr Hart, and Mrs Compline, who face had been ruined by a surgeon, twenty years before. Also, the delightfully re-named, Audbrey Mandrake - not sure which was worse, personally. Stanley Footling is not that bad, surely, by comparison :)

Also, of course, we had mention of Pen Cuckoo, which featured previously in a Marsh novel.

i found the bit about the name changing slightly awkward - Ngaio.Marsh was a bit of a snob I think, it's one of her 'aren't the lower.middle classes comical' moments.

I agree. There were worse secrets to worry about, I would have thought.

I really enjoyed this book as the characters were realistic but their relationships were outrageous. Would any mother be so very one sided? And so obviously?

I did anticipate the murderer but more because I hated Nigel so much that, if he wasn't going to be killed, I wanted him locked up. And because I recognize conversations where others only hear half as suspicious. Once again Marsh used an unlikely mechanical contraption!

And, did anyone notice that our heroine had bleached her hair to please Nigel, then lost him to a dark-haired beauty? Served her right (perhaps I'm too harsh).

You are a hard woman, Sandy ;)

I'm not quite done with this one (almost! Alleyn is on the scene), but I got side-tracked by the "Boomps-A-Daisy" dance and just had to investigate. In case you all wondered what it's like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsfmD...

Bev wrote: "I'm not quite done with this one (almost! Alleyn is on the scene), but I got side-tracked by the "Boomps-A-Daisy" dance and just had to investigate. In case you all wondered what it's like: https:/..."

Thank you!

That footman, as we read, was not quite cut out for service... :)

Sandy wrote: "I really enjoyed this book as the characters were realistic but their relationships were outrageous. Would any mother be so very one sided? And so obviously?

I did anticipate the murderer but more..."

The mother was absolutely ghastly, she was really over the top. Should have been murdered long ago.

With the exception of Aubrey, Chloris and Hersey, the characters were all horrors.

It was quite an elaborate method of murder, not quite sure how realistic that was. It was nice that Marsh included a Maori artifact though

Tracey wrote: "With the exception of Aubrey, Chloris and Hersey, the characters were all horrors.

It was quite an elaborate method of murder, not quite sure how realistic that was. It was nice that Marsh include..."

I would add William and Dr. Hart to the 'not horrible' list which leaves me with a short list of horrors: Mom, Nigel, Mrs. Hart and Jonathan Royal for playing with others lives. There is hint of his redemption at the end, though it may only last until he is bored again.

Marsh should have actually tested her murder methods.

Susan wrote: "There were a lot of different feuds/dislikes going on in this novel. Which did you think worked well and which less so?
..."

I didn't find the feud between the two beauty salon owners very interesting - and also it may be pushing the theme of beauty a bit too much to have these two in the same house with a plastic surgeon and a victim of said surgeon!

It was interesting that the plastic surgery had its initial story some years before, around WWI and the infancy of such procedures. I think the book mentions paraffin wax, if I remember correctly. Apparently, that was even injected into breasts, in early procedures, which sounds horrible and created lumps, or slipped, as was mentioned with Mrs Compline's face.

I have just started reading this - having put it by after checking its date during the reading of Surfeit of Lampreys. I must be obsessed with the War, because I am now wondering how William can be said to have had a 'good war' when he is in France during the Phony War. Calling France 'the Front' also seems a trifle odd, as if it's based on the First World War, not the Second. But perhaps there will be more details later on.

If he was back in England, after being in France at the beginning of the war, then that was pretty good. I presume he was at Dunkirk, if that was the case?

Susan wrote: "If he was back in England, after being in France at the beginning of the war, then that was pretty good. I presume he was at Dunkirk, if that was the case?"

Dunkirk was May/June 1940. This is early 1940 - still winter, still snowing. The Germans are still in Germany (and Poland, and Austria). They don't invade France until May 1940.

Weather wise, it seems to match late January 1940 ... https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries...

I don't think Marsh is keeping to particular dates, somehow; or, at least, she was not careful about fact checking. Her war statements are general and certainly seem out of order. However, I think you are right - Jan 1940 sounds correct, in which case, yes, very early. I am currently enjoying a book of war memoirs about the early years of the war that might interest you - War in the Strand: A Notebook of the first Two and a Half Years in London

I am keeping a note of references to the 'war'. William mentions how when they were 'on patrol' one of his men made a slighting comment about those quartered safe behind ...

I agree that Marsh isn't keeping to particular dates. But the problem is that she isn't even 'describing' the Second World War. There was no Front for William's regiment to be sent to in 1939, no need for patrols. The French Army is between the British Army and the non-attacking Germany Army.

One could say that there never was a Front in the Second World War, in Europe at least. There were moving Front Lines - retreating in the face of the German advance in May 1940 and pushing the Germans back in June 1944, but I don't think I've ever heard of the point of contact with the enemy being called 'the Front'. It was far less static than the First World War. Regiments went into action.

This wrong image of the War would be inexcusable for a modern writer. For someone who was living it as Marsh was it is incomprehensible.

Edit: From Wikipedia "The first BEF fatality was 27-year-old Corporal Thomas William Priday, from the 1st Battalion, King's Shropshire Light Infantry, attached to the 3rd Infantry Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, killed on 9 December 1939, when his patrol set off a booby-trap and was fired upon by friendly troops" This is on the French Belgian border, but I was clearly wrong to suggest that there were no risks to patrolling.

Rosina wrote: "I am keeping a note of references to the 'war'. William mentions how when they were 'on patrol' one of his men made a slighting comment about those quartered safe behind ...

I agree that Marsh is..."

People.may have referredto it as the front early in the war - when they thought perhaps that the German army could be held back asit was in WW1

I have never heard The Front used to describe the BEF in France during the Phoney War. It would be understandable if the mother, remembering the Great War, thought that way, but it is the 'good war' comment which seems to display a tin ear (and I'm not going to mention rationing, including petrol rationing, or conscription, which may be dealt with later in the book).

Susan wrote: "I don't think Marsh is keeping to particular dates, somehow; or, at least, she was not careful about fact checking. Her war statements are general and certainly seem out of order. However, I think ..."

Also when looking at her bio and bibliography it seems there was around a 2 year period between the writing and publishing. Not unusual in those days of typesetting, and time taken sending the manuscript to the publisher. It would seem feasible to assume this book was written 1939/40.

I agree that Marsh doesn't appear to have researched her facts/dates around the War, and her references have been general and using terms that we now relate to WWI. I wonder what she would have used to get those facts to check?

It would be very odd to have written a book, at the start of a major war, and to have set it a few months in the future, knowing that by the time it was published the War may have gone in a way you did not foresee. In this case her apparent view that France in 1939 was not a fairly cushy billet, if you could avoid triggering your own side's booby traps. Alternatively, of course, France could have fallen within weeks of the declaration of War, and England could already be fighting on the beaches and in the streets. What would she gain by post-dating it, rather than setting it in her own recent past, where she can at least be sure that the background to her story reflects the reality all her readers knew?

I am quite sure that the newspapers, in the UK, the US and New Zealand would have described the lack of battles in France, even if stressing the martial preparedness of the whole nation.

I wonder if publishers wanted books updated, to set them during the war, in case they seemed out of date? If so, unfortunately it seems as if in some cases this actually made them more out of date!

It is, if you think about it, quite brave to write a book during wartime when you have no real idea of the outcome. Events were moving so quickly, it would be nearly impossible to get them right, I would imagine. As we have seen in the Nicholas Blake novel, he mentions the blackout and that's about it, which might have been easier.

Louise wrote: "i found the bit about the name changing slightly awkward - Ngaio.Marsh was a bit of a snob I think, it's one of her 'aren't the lower.middle classes comical' moments. ."

I noticed the classism and racism in Marsh's books when I read them in the '80s, but it's so much more obvious to me now, along with an inherent colonialism. And makes me rather sad... I loved these books back then, and while I'm still enjoying them, I'm also much more uncomfortable with Marsh's attitudes, the more so because she tries to portray Alleyn (and herself) as lacking class and racial prejudice, at least in contrast to some of the other characters. But it's still there, subconsciously.

I've just finished this so popped in to read the comments. I sort of guessed the murderer, mainly once the insistence that he was the potential victim got a bit too over the top.

I also thought Alleyn came in very late, I'd almost forgotten that it was an Alleyn mystery by then! Still, he was quite subdued when he did arrive, he admitted he was a bit lost without Fox and the others. He did a lot of measuring and observing and interviewing though.

I was quite fascinated by the paraffin wax treatments. The vagueness about the war didn't bother me, I guess Marsh was just trying to point out another way that Nicholas was a waste of space compared to his brother, but his mother still thought he was the golden boy and made excuses for him.

The paraffin wax treatments sound terrible, the fact that they would slowly migrate southwards, to give such looks described as 'a witches chin'! I found quite a bit of information about Gladys Deacon, the Duchess of Marlborough, who apparently was beautiful and had paraffin wax treatment to her nose, but later became a recluse as the wax moved.

Yes, it seems the nose was a popular candidate for this treatment. Apparently, not only could the wax 'migrate' it could also cause specific cancers known as 'paraffinomas'. Horrific!

Thanks for the link to the Boomps-a-Daisy, so neat to see it acted out. For some reason I had pictured it at a much quicker pace, similar to the jitterbug.

With regard to the treatment of the war, I imagine she either felt compelled (or the publishers insisted), that she include references to it, but she did so in a rather broad, vague kind of way. Since it only pops up as a passing comment or side note, it does not bother me as much as it would if it were a main feature of the story.

I had also guessed that Nicholas was the culprit early in the going, as Dr. Hart was never a convincing suspect, and his close-calls and near misses seemed too convenient. I am similarly suspicious of one-sided conversations, so that was a dead giveaway in my opinion. But rather than being a let-down, I tend to enjoy stories I can figure out more so than ones for which I have no clue what has happened. I even stayed up late reading to confirm whether or not I was right. I felt sorry for William, and I thought that Nicholas and Madame Lisse deserved each other. Hopefully she will get tried as an accomplice.

I just finished this one and was a bit disappointed by the lack of Fox and Alleyn banter. I missed having their humor to lighten up the story.

Susan wrote: "... Also, the delightfully re-named, Aubrey Mandrake - not sure which was worse, personally. Stanley Footling is not that bad, surely, by comparison :)"

Aubrey Mandrake is a pretty terrible name, too precious for words! In the original name it might be the 'Footling' part that prompted him to discard it - footling is (or was) slang for something trivial - like "a footling problem", so you can just imagine the reviews if the critic disliked the play!