Spinsters in Jeopardy
First edition | |
Author | Ngaio Marsh |
---|---|
Language | English |
Series | Roderick Alleyn |
Genre | Detective fiction |
Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
Publication date | 1954 |
Media type | |
Preceded by | Opening Night |
Followed by | Scales of Justice |
Spinsters in Jeopardy is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the seventeenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1954. The novel is set in Southern France, where Alleyn, his painter wife Agatha Troy and their young son Ricky are on holiday. Alleyn is tasked by his Scotland Yard superiors with meeting French police colleagues to discuss international drug trafficking through Marseilles.
Plot
On the overnight sleeper train from Paris, the Alleyns witness what appears to be a fatal night-time stabbing in the illuminated window of a dramatically-set mediaeval castle overlooking the railway line. This proves to be the resort of an élite, louche group of socialites who are dabbling in Black Magic under the auspices of a smoothly dubious host and 'high priest' of a cult that clearly involves recreational drug-taking, with vulnerable wealthy women potentially exploited. Alleyn's investigations are complicated by the kidnapping of Ricky from their hotel.[1]
Reception
Kirkus Reviews had a brief review of this novel, closing with "Good summer sustenance."[2]
Themes
The novel revisits similar themes to Marsh's earlier Alleyn mystery novel Death in Ecstasy (1936), which also concerns a suspect cult with drug-taking a part of its practice and a dubiously charismatic cult leader, although the earlier book is set in fashionable London society, not Southern France. According to Marsh's biographer Margaret Lewis, in writing both novels, Marsh drew on her knowledge of an actual 1890s scandal in her native Christchurch NZ: Arthur Bently Worthington's Temple of Truth.[3] Lewis also says (page 147) that Marsh based the sinister chateau on a French Saracen fortress where her lifelong friends, the Rhodes family, holidayed in 1949.
Publication
The novel was published in the United States in 1953 by Little Brown of Boston, her usual American publisher and in 1955 in an abridged edition titled The Bride of Death by Spivak of New York.
References
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- A Man Lay Dead
- Enter a Murderer
- The Nursing Home Murder
- Death in Ecstasy
- Vintage Murder
- Artists in Crime
- Death in a White Tie
- Overture to Death
- Death at the Bar
- Surfeit of Lampreys
- Death and the Dancing Footman
- Colour Scheme
- Died in the Wool
- Final Curtain
- Swing Brother Swing
- Opening Night
- Spinsters in Jeopardy
- Scales of Justice
- Off With His Head
- Singing in the Shrouds
- False Scent
- Hand in Glove
- Dead Water
- Death at the Dolphin
- Clutch of Constables
- When in Rome
- Tied Up in Tinsel
- Black as He's Painted
- Last Ditch
- Grave Mistake
- Photo Finish
- Light Thickens
- Ngaio Marsh Theatre
- The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries
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