The Ngaio Marsh Collection - Colour Scheme
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Review
‘The brilliant Ngaio Marsh ranks with Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers’
Times Literary Supplement
‘The queen of the straight crime novel – long may she reign!’
Sunday Times
‘The brilliant New Zealander Ngaio Marsh claims a high level as to sheer writing and still more as a view of humanity.’
Elizabeth Bowen
‘Nobody begins to touch Ngaio Marsh’s skill at creating corpses and suspects… her dialogue is a continuous delight.’
New York Herald Tribune
‘The finest writer in the English languange of the pure, classical puzzle whodunnit. Among the crime queens, Ngaio Marsh stands out as an Empress.’
The Sun
Product Description
Often regarded as her most interesting book and set on New Zealand’s North Island, Ngaio Marsh herself considered this to be her best-written novel.
It was a horrible death – Maurice Questing was lured into a pool of boiling mud and left there to die.
Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn, far from home on a wartime quest for German agents, knew that any number of people could have killed him: the English exiles he’d hated, the New Zealanders he’d despised or the Maoris he’d insulted. Even the spies he’d thwarted – if he wasn’t a spy himself…
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh is, on the surface, a murder mystery, written and set during World War II. However, If you come to it expecting, as I did, an Agatha Christie clone, you will be very pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Christie as much as the next person, however many of her books are overly simplistic when it comes to characterization, instead relying too heavily on plot and coincidence. Ngaio Marsh does not seem to follow this path.
Set in Wartime New Zealand, in a mud spa/hotel run by an enthusiastic, but largely incompetent middle class British family, and the surrounding Maori lands, almost the entire book relates to the relationships between the family, the local people and the eclectic group of guests staying at the resort. While there is a great deal of class warfare going on that is not too pleasant to read, Marsh does not seem to suffer from the vitriolic fear and suspicion of strangers that Christie does. In a book which considers the impact of western culture on the Maoris, written at a similar time to many of Christie's works, this was very refreshing.
I don't want to give you the wrong impression of this book, as if it were a political treatise, rather than a cosy murder mystery, as a cosy murder mystery is exactly what it is - just a very good one. I won't go into the details of the plot anymore, save to say that there are many red herrings, and many very good clues, that really do make you think you could work out the mystery yourself.
It's too late for me to go back to this book and try and puzzle out whodunit ('cos I know!) but I am certainly going to get another Ngaio Marsh on my reading list, read it with care, and, hopefully, solve the crime.
Also, I am one of those readers who generally prefer for books not to be one of a series, and this is apparently part of the Inspector Alleyn series (or so it says on the back cover). Don't worry though, it doesn't seem like you have to read them in order, or know what happen ten years ago to the main character seven books previously to understand what's going on. A big plus point.
Set in Wartime New Zealand, in a mud spa/hotel run by an enthusiastic, but largely incompetent middle class British family, and the surrounding Maori lands, almost the entire book relates to the relationships between the family, the local people and the eclectic group of guests staying at the resort. While there is a great deal of class warfare going on that is not too pleasant to read, Marsh does not seem to suffer from the vitriolic fear and suspicion of strangers that Christie does. In a book which considers the impact of western culture on the Maoris, written at a similar time to many of Christie's works, this was very refreshing.
I don't want to give you the wrong impression of this book, as if it were a political treatise, rather than a cosy murder mystery, as a cosy murder mystery is exactly what it is - just a very good one. I won't go into the details of the plot anymore, save to say that there are many red herrings, and many very good clues, that really do make you think you could work out the mystery yourself.
It's too late for me to go back to this book and try and puzzle out whodunit ('cos I know!) but I am certainly going to get another Ngaio Marsh on my reading list, read it with care, and, hopefully, solve the crime.
Also, I am one of those readers who generally prefer for books not to be one of a series, and this is apparently part of the Inspector Alleyn series (or so it says on the back cover). Don't worry though, it doesn't seem like you have to read them in order, or know what happen ten years ago to the main character seven books previously to understand what's going on. A big plus point.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent read. Set in WW2, it requires close attention to the time, setting and language and is well worth the effort. It's one of most horrid murder mysteries I have ever read, the crime seeming sly, vengeful and cruel. When each of the very different characters has a life-view that clashes with most of the others', you'd expect catastrophe, wouldn't you? I've never been to New Zealand, but I feel as if I had, so vividly realized is the setting, and so well dramatized the 'players'. Ngaio Marsh always gets her characters' idiolects just right, so that if you read the book aloud you can believe you're there with them at the hot springs, waiting for disaster.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
File this under Marsh's best
7 Mar 2006
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I've come back to this gem at least four times -- though another reviewer says explicitly that he would not be back.
My reasons for returning?
First, the land. New Zealand is a character here, and it's delineated by Marsh with the kinds of detail that made travelogues interesting, back before television showed us everywhere all at once. The light, the flora, the geology... it's all like a Turner watercolor, fascinating light plays and landscapes, where the weather and warmth is pervasive.
Second, there is the humor. There are fascinating caricatures of the British 'high-toned' expatriate family in straightened means, the self-centered movie star of the 1940s, the Callow Youth (all provincial slang, worn like a flashy shirt), the Crass Businessman. Seeing much of the interplay through Dikon's down-to-earth eyes -- acting as the chorus of the play, observing and summarizing -- makes it even funnier.
The land between the Maoris and the Claires is one that you'll remember. It's as sinister as Conan Doyle's moor in Hound of the Baskervilles and equally bathed in wrenching sights and sounds.
And everything moves in and out of surrealism: a real train bears down on a fantastic landscape, Gaunt's posturing suddenly gives way to a moment of genuine generosity (or is it?), walkers fearfully pick their way along paths through dangerous hot springs... It's fun to see Barbara emerge as enticing despite her continuous mugging and 'attitudes'... doubtless derived from the kinds of movies that Gaunt makes...
A final thought: while Colour Scheme is among Marsh's best, it probably is not the best choice for a first sampling of Roderick Alleyn at work. Light Thickens would be my candidate for that -- among the last of Marsh's mysteries, it beautifully melds human motivations and actions with the theater (and within that, one of theater's most theatric of plays, Macbeth).
But, as a kind of side-note into Alleyn's life, and a commentary on World War II in the South Pacific, and a grouping of often hilarious caricatures, Colour Scheme is a worthy read.
My reasons for returning?
First, the land. New Zealand is a character here, and it's delineated by Marsh with the kinds of detail that made travelogues interesting, back before television showed us everywhere all at once. The light, the flora, the geology... it's all like a Turner watercolor, fascinating light plays and landscapes, where the weather and warmth is pervasive.
Second, there is the humor. There are fascinating caricatures of the British 'high-toned' expatriate family in straightened means, the self-centered movie star of the 1940s, the Callow Youth (all provincial slang, worn like a flashy shirt), the Crass Businessman. Seeing much of the interplay through Dikon's down-to-earth eyes -- acting as the chorus of the play, observing and summarizing -- makes it even funnier.
The land between the Maoris and the Claires is one that you'll remember. It's as sinister as Conan Doyle's moor in Hound of the Baskervilles and equally bathed in wrenching sights and sounds.
And everything moves in and out of surrealism: a real train bears down on a fantastic landscape, Gaunt's posturing suddenly gives way to a moment of genuine generosity (or is it?), walkers fearfully pick their way along paths through dangerous hot springs... It's fun to see Barbara emerge as enticing despite her continuous mugging and 'attitudes'... doubtless derived from the kinds of movies that Gaunt makes...
A final thought: while Colour Scheme is among Marsh's best, it probably is not the best choice for a first sampling of Roderick Alleyn at work. Light Thickens would be my candidate for that -- among the last of Marsh's mysteries, it beautifully melds human motivations and actions with the theater (and within that, one of theater's most theatric of plays, Macbeth).
But, as a kind of side-note into Alleyn's life, and a commentary on World War II in the South Pacific, and a grouping of often hilarious caricatures, Colour Scheme is a worthy read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A World War II Spy Story
21 Oct 2004
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Knowing that Ngaio Marsh lived in New Zealand, it made sense that she would situate one of her mysteries in her beloved adopted country. In this book Inspector Alleyn is in New Zealand during World War II to do a bit of "spy busting". As in all her books, this one has a flawlessly written plot with a very tight story line. In the keeping of a "spy story", Ms. Marsh's Alleyn does not appear as himself. He appears in the story in a very clever disguise, and the reader will have the fun of figuring out who he is. It took me a little while. What Alleyn has come to the spa to investigate is the death of one of the people who had an interest in the spa. We meet some very unique characters in this book. The Colonel's family is quite wonderful actually.Ms. Marsh can tell a tale!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Marsh Writing Near the Height of Her Powers
1 Jan 2005
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Set during World War II, the 1942 COLOUR SCHEME concerns a noted stage star, Geoffrey Gaunt, who finds himself afflicted with "fibrosistis." Electing to soak himself in the sulfurous mud baths at Wai-ata-tapu, Gaunt finds himself at an isolated and very ramshackle guest house incompetently run by the well-meaning but exceedingly provincial Claire family, who are beset by the singularly unpleasant Maurice Questing.
Questing has an unknown hold over the family--and an incredibly boorish manner to boot--but does he have anything to do with the flashing lights seen on the hillside inside the native Maori preserve? Lights that may signaled to enemy agents watching, and sinking, military ships? Certainly various members of the Claire family believe so. The speculation is enough to attract the interest of Inspector Alleyn, on wartime duty from his native England. And when murder at last rears its ugly head it proves unexpectedly horrific.
COLOUR SCHEME finds Marsh writing at full power, and it is a memorable melange of beautifully rendered characters, atmospheric setting, and intricate plot. In spite of this, however, I find it among my least favorite of her novels--for the characters are among the least likable she ever created, ranging from the downright disgusting to the tiresomely egotistical to the merely stupid. While this should not detract from a first-time reader's enjoyment, it certainly doesn't make this a novel that you will likely care to revisit--and as such I give it four instead of five stars.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Questing has an unknown hold over the family--and an incredibly boorish manner to boot--but does he have anything to do with the flashing lights seen on the hillside inside the native Maori preserve? Lights that may signaled to enemy agents watching, and sinking, military ships? Certainly various members of the Claire family believe so. The speculation is enough to attract the interest of Inspector Alleyn, on wartime duty from his native England. And when murder at last rears its ugly head it proves unexpectedly horrific.
COLOUR SCHEME finds Marsh writing at full power, and it is a memorable melange of beautifully rendered characters, atmospheric setting, and intricate plot. In spite of this, however, I find it among my least favorite of her novels--for the characters are among the least likable she ever created, ranging from the downright disgusting to the tiresomely egotistical to the merely stupid. While this should not detract from a first-time reader's enjoyment, it certainly doesn't make this a novel that you will likely care to revisit--and as such I give it four instead of five stars.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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