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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cruising with a Queen of Crime, Nov 14 2008
Anyone who loves the classic detection novel is probably familiar with the so-called "Queens of Crime" -- Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham. During the second and third quarters of the twentieth century these writers (all British with the partial exception of New Zealander Marsh) played a significant role in creating the genre.
Marsh, whose real love was the theater, wrote 32 crime and detection novels featuring the gentlemanly Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. While most of her novels follow the traditional formula, "Clutch of Constables" strays a bit outside the usual pattern. While Alleyn is out of the country investigating an art forgery ring, his wife, painter Agatha Troy, fills in a few free days by impulsively booking a cruise on a winding English river. Her companions on this cruise are a brilliantly strange company played large enough to reach the back benches; many of Marsh's books have a theatrical setting but none of her characters are more stage-ready than this riverboat crowd.
The story is told in flashback format as Alleyn lectures on the case to students; for most of the riverboat story Alleyn is present only in his wife's letters to him. This book offers fans a chance to know Agatha Troy better and is a well done detection puzzle with red herrings and psychological overtones. Its greatest pleasure for me is the hypnotic winding river cruise, with landscape features dreamily going in and out of the scene with the river's turns. Of any book on my shelf, this is among the best suited to read during a jangled, stressful time; I feel myself slowing down, the river working its magic and the momentum of discovery taking us closer to the inevitable solution. Recently I needed to read this book yet again and it did its work as always.
If you are new to Dame Ngaio, this is not the most "representative" book to start with. I'd recommend Surfeit of Lampreys, Death at the Bar, Final Curtain, Singing in the Shrouds; possibly Died in the Wool. But if you do decide on a Ngaio Marsh sampler, by all means include the charming and hypnotic Clutch of Constables -- which title incidentally refers not to English bobbies on bicycles but to the English landscape painter John Constable.
Linda Bulger, 2008
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Colorful and Entertaining, Dec 8 2001
Unlike most of Marsh's Inspector Allen novels, A Clutch of Constables focuses primarily on his celebrated artist wife Troy, who has taken a spur of the moment river cruise only to find herself increasingly disturbed by mysterious goings-on during the voyage. Instead of damaging the story, the shift in focus to Troy makes for a refreshing change, and like most Marsh novels A CLUTCH OF CONSTABLES abounds with colorful, finely drawn characters and considerable atmosphere. Readers will quickly identify the nature of the criminal plot, but they will not be quite as quick to identify the ring-leader. A very entertaining read.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Not the best, but still a good way to pass time, Aug 21 2000
The format of this Marsh mystery differed a bit, in that it cut back and forth between Inspector Alleyn teaching a class and the case that he actually uses as an example, which incidentally, involves his wife Troy. Troy decides to take a breather after her London art show and sees that there is a last minute cancellation on a mini-cruise. She signs up for it, and realizes, shortly into the trip, that she may be on bored with a famous international criminal - one wanted for murder. But which one of her fellow passengers is "The Jampot"? Alleyn himself is in the States on business, so a good deal of the information is first learned through Troy's letters to him (an interesting change, since we usually see Alleyn's letters to Troy). But as he becomes more and more alarmed by her reports, he returns to try and catch the Jampot before yet another murder is committed.
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by Ngaio Marsh
by Ngaio Marsh
by Ngaio Marsh
by Ngaio Marsh
