Enter a Murderer

‘ I haven’t the foggiest idea who did it’ - Inspector Alleyn

Nagio Marsh creates an unconventional detective figure with Chief – Inspector Alleyn, whose unique style makes me want to read more.

I began reading this upon the belief that I would read about the first fictional to detective who got it wrong and arrested the wrong person but I don’t believe I did. Although, Alleyn does arrest someone before the actual murderer, I didn’t see that as a police officer making a mistake. I thought firstly that he had no choice but to arrest him as he had told many that he was going to and had an image to uphold however it’s not often that a detective, who are often quite dominate which Alleyn does demonstrate, is controlled by other’s expectations. After finishing the novel I think that it could’ve been a ploy to get the murderer to let down his guard and enable Alleyn to capture them. But thinking about it more, the murderer doesn’t seem to change at all even when he is arrested so Alleyn’s plan may’ve failed but I still don’t see it as him as a detective failing.  

Alleyn admits his short comings with ease which is rare for any detective and his constant references to Shakespeare have to be appreciated, even though the majority went over my head. The title too refers to Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’. I’m interested to see if this is a trait that continues throughout Marsh’s novels or if it is solely due to the setting of the murder being at the fictional Unicorn theatre. Surprisingly, Alleyn even becomes somewhat occupied with a love interest pushing him further away from the stereotypical idea of a detective. He does become a bit conventional towards to end as he leaves Bathgate, his sidekick, and consequently the reader out of his discoveries and appears to become more so of an omniscient force.

Marsh’s writing style intrigues me as it adapted to its setting. As the murder occurred during a play and the main suspects are actors it took on the format of plays at times. Not literally in presentation but the way the characters spoke often echoed a script in my opinion which I found to be quite fitting. Her choice in doing this appears unique to me but might not have been purposeful as this was only her second published novel, realised in 1935, so she still may have been yet to have found her writing style. Additionally, unlike many writers she didn’t bombard me with many characters that I had to keep track of. There was only the close circle of suspects who were in the cast and crew of ‘The Rat and the Beaver’ and those who investigated to crime. This isn’t by any means a short list of characters but every character seemed necessary for the plot.  She even goes as far as to clearly write that the character of Angela has ‘no part in this story’.

Despite the novel being quite short it took me a while to get to the end as I read it in infrequent short bursts. Though this is something I often do, I believe for this novel it affected my engagement with the story. Once the murderer was revealed, although interesting I had no overwhelming reaction. I think that generally I’m quite a passive reader but I am still able to see this as the great crime novel it is and I am more excited to learn what Marsh offers with Inspector Alleyn in this series.