Excellent Quotes: Enter a Murderer

Agatha Christie was only the most famous of the British writers during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. An equally charming contributor to the genre was New Zealand import Ngaio Marsh, herself both an award-winning writer and a theatrical producer.

Marsh's Poirot was Inspector Roderick Alleyn--the hero of thirty-two stories. He is a gentrified Detective Chief-Inspector whose Oxford erudition and sarcastic humor belie a street-wise tenaciousness and a feeling heart.

The detective's second adventure, 1935's Enter a Murderer blended Marsh's two great loves, centering on a play wherein one actor is killed onstage by a gun that has mysteriously been filled with real bullets rather than the usual blanks. Alleyn is, of course, in the audience for the fateful event and you'll be shocked that the denouement of the story involves reassembling the cast on stage to walk the "it's you, unless it's you, but really it's you" bases:

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Alleyn, "I have asked you to come here this morning in order that we may stage a reconstruction of the first scene in the last act of The Rat and the Beaver. In that scene, as you know, the deceased man, Mr. Arthur Surbonadier, loaded the revolver by which he was subsequently shot. You are all aware that Mr. Jacob Saint is under arrest. He will not be present. Otherwise, with the exception of the deceased, whose part will be read by Mr. Simpson, we are all here."

-- Marsh, Ngaio. Enter a Murderer. New York, NY: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012. P. 186.

If I had a dollar for every drawing room conclusion I've read I'd be a jillionaire. Still, both as an example of the enduringly popular genre and as a too-little-known character, Detective Alleyn is worth spending time with.

PS - Speaking of classic Golden Age mysteries, this month Twentieth Century Fox is releasing a lavish, star-studded remake of "Murder on the Orient Express." I wonder whodunnit? But you don't have to wonder about whether or not you should listen to Dunez's "I'm a Rebel Just for Kicks"; now playing on iTunes.

Books I Have Read (and Donated)

I have a small book problem. It lives in my small apartment. I need to do something about the number of books I have and the answer is not more cowbell. Neither is it another bookshelf.

So, in an idiosyncratic deal with myself, I am posting a list of books I have read (so as not to ever forget each precious one) and passed on to another reader at the library's book donation center:

The Godwulf Manuscript - Robert B Parker
Death in Paradise - Robert B Parker
High Profile - Robert B Parker
Sea Change - Robert B Parker
The Secret of the Old Clock - Carolyn Keene
The Partner - John Grisham
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
The Broker - John Grisham
The Client - John Grisham
In Pale Battalions - Robert Goddard
Death By Hollywood - Steven Bochco
The Killing of Monday Brown - Sandra West Prowell
The Horse You Came in On - Martha Grimes
I am the Only Running Footman - Martha Grimes
A Man with a Load of Mischief - Martha Grimes
The Dirty Duck - Martha Grimes
The Old Fox Deceiv'd - Martha Grimes
Jerusalem Inn - Martha Grimes
The Anodyne Necklace - Martha Grimes
The Deer Leap - Martha Grimes
Our Kind of Traitor - John le Carre
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John le Carre
Our Game - John le Carre

PS - I cannot remember the plots of half these books. Why I should feel the need to know that I read them is beyond me. A perfectly good alternate solution would be to throw out all my other books and just read these over and over, being pleasantly surprised each time. Oh, and another thing not to forget is to listen to "Hope the High Road" by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit; now playing on iTunes.