I first discovered Ngaio Marsh a couple of years ago. I usually like to
read an author’s books in the order they were written, but as Marsh wrote
lots of books, and as the inside cover of the current edition list them
all in alphabetical order, I didn’t bother; instead, I just grabbed three
every time I went to the book store, and over a period of some months I’d
read them all.

Now, I’m off on a business trip to Australia in a couple of weeks, and
I’ve been saving new, unread books for the flight. So I was looking for
something to read last week, and decided that it would be fun to start
with Marsh’s first book and read them in order, just to see how her
writing and her characters evolve. Not all at once, mind you; I’ll be
reading other things as well.

So, A Man Lay Dead is her first book; it not only marks the
first appearance of Inspector Roderick Alleyn, but also that of his
friend and occasional Watson, reporter Nigel Bathgate, and of Nigel’s
sweetie Angela North. And frankly, it’s only the presence of the three
of them that really save this book.

It’s not a bad book, by any means; I enjoyed it. But it’s a typical
country house mystery, nothing too special there, and the subplot
involving a mysterious Russian secret society makes it sound just a
little too much like one of Bertie Wooster’s favored brand of pulp thriller
for comfort.

But if the plot and the perpetrators don’t shine, Nigel and Angela do;
and while Inspector Alleyn isn’t quite himself yet, he gets the job done.