Nursing Home Murder

This is a nice little mystery which will keep you guessing--in parallel with Chief Inspector Alleyn--until almost the end. It includes several references to Marsh's two prior mysteries A Man Lay Dead & Enter a Murderer. There are tons of potential murderers & motives galore--even some Bolsheviks (as in a previous work)--with Alleyn's highly enjoyable repartee with his Boswell, journalist Nigel Bathgate & his fiancée Angela North. While it's a fairly short work, it's satisfying, quite good, but perhaps not Marsh's best--which is very good indeed. This novel has been anthologized in at least two Marsh collections: The Roderick Alleyn Mysteries: The Nursing Home Murder; Death in a White Tie; Final Curtain & BOX SET "Four of Her Finest": The Nursing Home Murder / Colour Scheme / Dead Water / Spinsters in Jeopardy. Best of all, it demonstrates Marsh's almost unequalled style & humorous observations. My favorites are: p. 11: so maddeningly remote. Their very embraces were masked in a chilly patina of good form. He supposed he had married her in a brief wave of enthusiasm for polar exploration. p. 112: [Journalist Bathgate]--"Do you read crime fiction?" [Chief Inspector Alleyn]--"I dote on it. It's such a relief to escape from one's work into an entirely different atmosphere." p. 159: It gave her an uncanny resemblance to something human. It's also interesting that Marsh quotes Shakespeare: p. 139: "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes" since Agatha Christie published a mystery entitled By The Pricking Of My Thumbs (Tommy and Tuppence) & Ray Bradbury published Something Wicked This Way Comes. [page #'s are from the 1963 copyright but probably the same as this one]

FROM A CLASSIC MYSTERY AUTHOR A WONDERFUL BOOK STUFFED WITH THREE GREAT MYSTERIES AND THE DASHING RODERICK ALLEYN