Review: Colour Scheme

A rather suspicious and unbelievable set of circumstances finds Inspector Alleyn in New Zealand. In the midst of the thermal springs of northern New Zealand, a rather unpleasant character meets his death by drowning in a pool of boiling mud. The blundering Claire family owns the local resort, and they are well in debt to Maurice Questing, the unfortunate victim. Many wanted Questing dead.

At first I found the setting of this mystery to be quite interesting. The landscape is dramatic. That said, the solution to the mystery, the how, is deceptively simple. The who is rather unsatisfying, as the killer's character is not as developed as it could be. The side-plot about WWII spies operated at such a level of simplicity as to be somewhat absurd. A significant part of this mystery is figuring out how, exactly, Alleyn will come to be involved. I had that part figured about well before the end. This is not the best of Marsh's work. Her New Zealand mysteries never are.

Ngaio Marsh, Colour Scheme (orig. 1943) ISBN: 1937384551 

Review: They Came to Baghdad

I found this book to be different from Christie's usual fare. There's no murder mystery here. Rather, this book is about suspense and espionage. Former secretary Victoria Jones meets a man in the park and falls in love. When she discovers that he is moving to Baghdad, she decides to follow him. Victoria arrives in Baghdad on the cusp of an important meeting of world leaders to be held in the city, and the entire area is on high alert. Quickly it becomes obvious that it is not exactly safe for Victoria in Baghdad.

I will admit that I tend to prefer Christie's murder mystery books to those like this, on espionage. This isn't a bad book, it's just not necessarily as good as the murder mysteries. I felt like I didn't know the characters in this book, and that I couldn't get my head around the diplomacy. I did manage to figure out who the bad guy was, which was gratifying, and it was interesting to read about Baghdad at a very different time.

Agatha Christie, They Came to Baghdad (William Morrow, 2003) ISBN: 0062073788 

Review: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

Peter Wimsey solves a classic locked-room mystery, as he tries to determine how the corpse of an elderly man came to be in the Bellona Club on Remembrance Day. The man died sometime after 10am, but the exact time of death is a mystery. It becomes a pressing mystery when it becomes clear that the time of death determines who will inherit a large fortune. The convoluted family argument and complex relationships make Wimsey's efforts more difficult. Halfway through the book the culprit seems to be apprehended, but Wimsey isn't so sure. I liked the model of a solution partway through the book that had to be unraveled.

This book had little engagement with Wimsey's life outside of the mystery. It is a book dependent upon Wimsey entering an existing situation. The details are numerous, and we get an interesting look at a London gentlemen's club in the 1920s. Overall, an entertaining classic mystery.

Dorothy Sayers, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (orig. 1928) ISBN: 0061043540