Crime, Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

Hello fellow Crime, Mystery & Thriller readers! This discussion is aboutA Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh your discussion leader is Tom
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About spoilers

Please note: No spoilers should be revealed in this discussion.

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Summary

At Sir Hubert Handesley's country house party, five guests have gathered for the uproarious parlour game of "Murder." No one is laughing when the lights come up on an actual corpse, the good-looking and mysterious Charles Rankin. Scotland Yard's Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives to find a complete collection of alibis, a missing butler, and an intricate puzzle of betrayal and sedition in the search for the key player in this deadly game

Hello all and welcome to the discussion of A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh. Just a quick reminder that this is the No Spoilers thread, so thanks in advance for your restraint. Very much looking forward to this book and the discussion. When I think "classic" mystery, I immediately think Golden Age. And even though Marsh was one of the Golden Age's much read four Queens of Crime (along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Margery Allingham), she is the only one I have not yet read. Just got my hands on a copy and plan to sit down and crack the spine of it this evening. Hope you will be doing the same and look forward to hearing everyone's impressions.

I started reading this a week or two ago. Reading it slowly. Hahahahaha. Alleyn has just come into the book. One thing - not plot related - that I noticed is that he’s more developed as a character than I thought he would be, given its his first story. The look, suaveness, and attire are all there, as is his background. He deals with witnesses much as I remembered him doing in Artists in Crime, and not as a rookie.

Bruce wrote: "I started reading this a week or two ago. Reading it slowly. Hahahahaha. Alleyn has just come into the book. One thing - not plot related - that I noticed is that he’s more developed as a character..."
Agree about the Alleyn character. I am coincidentally also reading The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey just now. I am struck by the many similarities in writing style between the two authors. One such similarity is the characterization of detectives. Both Marsh's Alleyn and Tey's Alan Grant are portrayed as suave sophisticates. But while Alleyn is autoritative nearly to the point of being imperious with subordinates, the police surgeon, and even witnesses/potential suspects; Grant is far more subtle and almost defferential to colleagues, witnesses, and suspects. Interesting contrast.

I haven’t read Tey in a while, but I remember enjoying the Man in the Queue and A Shilling for Candles. I prefered them to the Alleyn novels for being set all over the place, as I remember them, whereas the 2 Alleyn books I read were more drawing room mysteries. I usually prefer an amateur or non police detective for drawing room mysteries, i.e. Poirot, Miss Marple, Campion. I also liked how in A Shilling for Candles, the plot was more focused on the accused than the detective.