PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 117, 20 May 1939, Page 20

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The City Librarian has chosen "Overture to Death," by Ngaio Marsh, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:—

During the present publishing season books by New Zealand ■writers have been well to the fore. Three volumes of essays—one by Mr. F. L. Combs, of Wellington, which was noticed recently in this column; one by Mr. Alan Mulgan. also of Wellington, an accomplished series of studies in real essayist's vein; and a third from the pen of Mr. J. H. E. Schroder, of Christchurch, written in delicate prose, reminiscent of the style of Elia—have made their appearance. Miss Ngaio Marsh, also of Christchurch, has now published still another of her Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn murder mysteries. Miss Marsh has written several mysteries now, and many judges place her in the same class as Miss Dorothy Sayers and Miss Agatha Christie.

"Overture to Death" is centred round Pen Cuckoo and its squire, Jocelyn Jerningham, and about the parish of Winton St. Giles and its rector, Walter Copeland, a sincere, simple-minded parish priest with the physique and presence of a medieval saint. The action centres about a dramatic performance held in the parish hall for; the purpose of raising funds for a newpiano. Two aged spinsters vie with each other for the rector's affection. The rector, poor man, feels' chivvied and helpless, and is almost at his wits' end. From this not altogether unusual situation Miss Marsh produces a first-class murder mystery.

At the beginning of the overture before the play, one of the elderly ladies treads hard on the soft pedal of the piano, and by doing so, meets her death. Chief Detective-Inspector Lane and "Brer Fox," with Nigel Bathgate, the journalist, in attendance, come down from London and succeed in clearing up a very pretty little mystery in which the protagonists all act naturally and are, in addition, satisfactory as persons, in the" same way as Miss Sayers's characters are satisfactory. Altogether, "Overture to Death" has all the features of a good murder novel. It is not particularly horrible. It has credible characters, a certain amount of fun and effervescence, the story never lags, the climax is difficult to foresee, and there are enough counter-plots, each of them full of interest, to keep the reader following one red herring after another. The auxiliary plots (it would be a shame to disclose the main one) concern the squire of Pen Cuckoo and his cousin who keeps house for him; Celia Ross, a widow who has beglamoured the local doctor, the squire's son, and the rector's daughter (the two very young romantics who make such a good second string to a detective story); the acidulated and malicious Idris Campanula, who encompasses her own death by treading on the soft pedal of the parish piano; an enfant terrible .with a water pistol; and an incredible old poacher, very dirty, rejoicing in the name of Saul Tranter, who "smelt very strong indeed of dirty old man, dead birds, and whisky," and who had been caught red-handed in the act of poaching, but was prepared to produce valuable information at a stage when the case was beginning to clear. , . Miss Marsh, in this latest novel, does not omit Agatha Troy, the painter, and Trby appears once or twice towards the end of the book. There are' all sorts of false trails, jncluding an onion and a teapot, which seem to lead all over the place, but of which a very fair proportion lead back to the criminal; besides the excitement and the human interest Miss Marsh has posed the reader a very fair problem —has deliberately put him off very little indeed, and has succeeded in keeping him guessing, mainly by clever placing of emphasis. Like her own murderer, she encompasses her victim's downfall by a judicious use of the sofi^ pedal. . ....

REGENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent •accession lists-are as follows:— General;—" Stop and Go," by V. C. Buckley;' "Hitler Qvef 'Africa," by B. Bennett; "Dunant: The Stbry of the Red Cross/ by, <M. Gumpert. ' Fiction.—"The Dynasty of Death," by T. Caldwell; "Evening at the Farm," by A. Hepple; "The Legacy," by R. Eton.