StartseiteGruppenForumMehrZeitgeist
Web-Site durchsuchen
Diese Seite verwendet Cookies für unsere Dienste, zur Verbesserung unserer Leistungen, für Analytik und (falls Sie nicht eingeloggt sind) für Werbung. Indem Sie LibraryThing nutzen, erklären Sie dass Sie unsere Nutzungsbedingungen und Datenschutzrichtlinie gelesen und verstanden haben. Die Nutzung unserer Webseite und Dienste unterliegt diesen Richtlinien und Geschäftsbedingungen.

Ergebnisse von Google Books

Auf ein Miniaturbild klicken, um zu Google Books zu gelangen.

Lädt ...

Stumme Zeugen (1955)

von Ngaio Marsh

Weitere Autoren: Siehe Abschnitt Weitere Autoren.

Reihen: Roderick Alleyn (18)

MitgliederRezensionenBeliebtheitDurchschnittliche BewertungDiskussionen
7701328,745 (3.72)40
The civilised surroundings of Swevenings are normally only disturbed by attempts to catch a local trout known as the Old Un. The police seem more interested in the trout rather than the body found next to it, yet both have died violent deaths
Lädt ...

Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest.

3.5*

Quite enjoyable mystery involving fish scales (!). ( )
  leslie.98 | Jun 27, 2023 |
Marsh was never quite as formulaic as Christie, but in Scales of Justice she brought her considerable skills to the genre, meeting all the criteria - the countryside, the manor house(s), the upstairs and the downstairs (in the shape of the local nurse) young romance and murder. It isn't 'great literature' but its a lovely, comfortable book; the red herrings are fine, and the murderer has sufficient motive to satisfy me. ( )
  LeslieHolm | May 19, 2022 |
I usually enjoy the ride to the solution in an Inspector Alleyn book, but this time, I kept thinking 'Argh! Another just-killing-time conversation. Let's get on with this.' Who's to blame — the book or the reading mood I was in? I felt like I wasted the time, but it assuredly won't stop me from reading more in the series. ( )
  ReadMeAnother | Mar 30, 2022 |


A smooth, well-written mystery that vivisects an England that was already curdling in 1955


Overall impressions

"Scales of Justice" was my first Ngaio Marsh book. It's the eighteenth book featuring Roderick Alleyn as the upper class Scotland Yard Detective Inspector but it can be read as a stand alone with no problems.

At the start of the boook, Marsh lays out the geography of the small English village the story takes place in, like a cleverly designed stage set and acquaints us with the principal character through the optimistic eyes Miss Kettle, the District Nurse, as she glides through the desmesnes of the County set on her sturdy bicycle. She is the cheerful, pragmatic voice of the common woman, filling her speach with valedictions such as "Be good and if you can't be good, be careful" and through her we first get to know the four interconnected households that the mystey revolves around. These are drawn with such skill that, by the time the murder happens, about a quarter of the way through the book, I found myself regretting the life lost and wanting the murderer caught.

I loved the language in the book, which offered descriptions like this one which is the first introduction of one of the key characters:

The evening light had faded to a bleached greyness. Silvered grass, trees, lawns, flowers and the mildly curving thread of the shadowed trout stream joined in an announcement of oncoming night. Through this setting Colonel Cartarette moved as if he were an expression both of its substance and its spirit. It was as if from the remote past, through a quiet progression of dusks, his figure had come up from the valley of the Chyne.


There are also some good insights into how people really behave towards one another, like this description:

Sometimes there exists in people who are attracted to each other a kind of ratio between the degree of attraction and the potential for irritation. Strangely, it is often the unhappiness of one that arouses an equal degree of irascibility in the other. The tear-blotted face, the obstinate misery, the knowledge that this distress is genuine and the feeling of incompetence it induces, all combine to exasperate and inflame.


The mystery itself is satisfyingly complex. There is a only a small pool of suspects but they are all colourful, it's a motive-rich environment and the method of the killing takes some working out. Inspector Alleyn, who comes from the same class as the people he is investigating, has a wonderfully calm manner and is very skilled at not being deflected or intimidated by the pressures the entitled habitually bring to bear to protect themselves.

So, as a mystery, this is definitely entertaining. What makes it more than that is what Marsh uses the mystery to do.

Some thoughts on what Ngaio Marsh is using this mystery to do.

It seems to me that Ngaio Marsh was using her mystery to prod and push and perhaps even slice open a particular view of England.

It's the view of those who believe themselves born to rule. The ones who see nothing odd about the term Home Counties. The ones who honestly believe that England is exceptional because they believe that they and their ancestors before them are and were exceptional.

It's also about the people who enable and sustain this point of view. The people like Nurse Kettle who believe in "degree" and who are reassured by a social hierarchy which doesn't change and in which they know and are satisfied with their place.

It's an England born of and nurtured by the stories the English tell themselves about how the world works.



The picture map that is drawn for Nurse Kettle is a good manifestation of that world view. Someone told me that it reminded them of "Wind In The Willows". I think that may be because it expresses the same England-as-we-would-like-it-to-be-if-we-were-all-good-chaps spirit. Alleyn describes the place as charming, saying it's:

'Like a lead pencil vignette in a Victorian album.'


Given the precision of Alleyn's language, I was reminded that charm is an illusion, cast to please the eye of the beholder and to hide what is really there.

We're told that Swevenings, the village name, means dream and the river's name Chyme, means yawn. Which I think is a hint that the map is a dream of England.

I think Ngaio Marsh manages to show the power of the charm and the ugliness it hides and grant both things a degree of authenticity.

Nurse Kettle, who is happily in the charm's thrall, is admirable in her way and her world view helps her to remain admirable. Lady Lacklander, who helps to cast the charm, is also admirable in her way. She plays the noblesse obligé game without reluctance and props up the dream through her unassailable certainty in her own entitlement.

Yet the reality the charm is hiding is not just one of disproportionate privilege but of treachery and exclusion and thoughtless exploitation.

Alleyn is able both to see the charm and see through it. He has dedicated himself to facts, even when he doesn't like where they lead him.

It seems to me that the biggest 'fact' Alleyn exposes is that the charm itself is toxic and damages those who cast it, those entralled by it and those excluded from it.

Try the audiobook if you can

I recommend the audiobook version, narrated by Philip Frank. I think he does a superb job. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.


https://soundcloud.com/hachetteaudiouk/scales-of-justice-unabridged-by-ngaio-mar...

( )
1 abstimmen MikeFinnFiction | Oct 5, 2020 |
Years and years ago I first read Ngaio Marsh. With Josephine Tey, she came to represent a different approach to mystery writing. From an emphasis on clever and even to some extent amusing puzzles, these authors shifted attention to character. The characters tend to drive the stories, even as the puzzle-breaking continues.

In this case, which occurred in the 1950s, Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard is called to investigate the murder of a respected gentleman in a small village. The victim was a member of the "county", as in gentry, as in the semi-feudal system of classes that prevailed in England for so many years. He was "the right sort", according, as I recall, to a visiting nurse named Kettle. Members of the ruling classes had lived in the village for many years and an alliance of sorts existed among the privileged as well as the underclasses. Thus the top families all knew each other and each other's secrets.

Except, perhaps, for one, in this case.

One of the families involved included Mrs. Lacklander, better known as Lady Lacklander, recently widowed. This unusually large woman with very small feet had known Alleyn from many years ago, as a young lad from her same class. Knowing he had entered the police service she specifically requested that he be sent out to investigate. Fortunately for her, his superiors had the same idea.

There are circumstances about the case that are puzzling and disturbing. The suspects all appear to be hiding something. And there is something about the fish that is lying next to the dead body. In fact, the case turns on the fish.

Meanwhile we get to know a young couple in love, possibly star-crossed, and we see that the wife of the deceased has been making time with one of the "Lucky Lacklanders".

Alleyn makes use of forensic scientists in solving the case to a greater extent than most other mysteries written at the time. I found it a little disturbing that the medical examiner was not called out until the morning after the discovery of the body, and that there were no "crime scene experts" available. Instead, Alleyn is assisted by local constabulary and his trusty Fox in discovering evidence at the scene. I could well imagine such a scene being handled very differently today.

While mysteries by Christie, for example, feature the solving of crime from very few facts and some leaps of imagination, this mystery combines the intelligent sorting of facts along with the inspection of many pieces of evidence. It seems transitional to the "police procedurals" that are more common today.

The book may be dated but character never is. I enjoyed this book as much, I am sure, as I did long ago. ( )
  slojudy | Sep 8, 2020 |
keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen

» Andere Autoren hinzufügen

AutorennameRolleArt des AutorsWerk?Status
Ngaio MarshHauptautoralle Ausgabenberechnet
May, NadiaErzählerCo-Autoreinige Ausgabenbestätigt
Du musst dich einloggen, um "Wissenswertes" zu bearbeiten.
Weitere Hilfe gibt es auf der "Wissenswertes"-Hilfe-Seite.
Gebräuchlichster Titel
Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen.
Originaltitel
Alternative Titel
Ursprüngliches Erscheinungsdatum
Figuren/Charaktere
Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen.
Wichtige Schauplätze
Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen.
Wichtige Ereignisse
Zugehörige Filme
Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen.
Epigraph (Motto/Zitat)
Widmung
Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen.
For Stella
Erste Worte
Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen.
Nurse Kettle pushed her bicycle to the top of Watt's Hill and there paused.
Zitate
Letzte Worte
Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen.
Hinweis zur Identitätsklärung
Verlagslektoren
Werbezitate von
Originalsprache
Anerkannter DDC/MDS
Anerkannter LCC

Literaturhinweise zu diesem Werk aus externen Quellen.

Wikipedia auf Englisch

Keine

The civilised surroundings of Swevenings are normally only disturbed by attempts to catch a local trout known as the Old Un. The police seem more interested in the trout rather than the body found next to it, yet both have died violent deaths

Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden.

Buchbeschreibung
Zusammenfassung in Haiku-Form

Aktuelle Diskussionen

Keine

Beliebte Umschlagbilder

Gespeicherte Links

Bewertung

Durchschnitt: (3.72)
0.5
1 1
1.5
2 5
2.5 4
3 38
3.5 12
4 44
4.5 4
5 24

Bist das du?

Werde ein LibraryThing-Autor.

 

Über uns | Kontakt/Impressum | LibraryThing.com | Datenschutz/Nutzungsbedingungen | Hilfe/FAQs | Blog | LT-Shop | APIs | TinyCat | Nachlassbibliotheken | Vorab-Rezensenten | Wissenswertes | 203,228,173 Bücher! | Menüleiste: Immer sichtbar