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DEAD WATER, by Ngaio Marsh.
Cover copy: It was one of those moments without time that strike at body and mind together with a single blow. A black shape, half-inflated, pulsed and moved with the action of the spring...
Alleyn had to get through the turnstile. He picked up a stone, hit it home and wrenched at the handle. There was a click and he was through and running to the spring. She was lying face down in the pool, only a few inches below the water. Her sparse hair rippled and eddied in the stream...The gash in her scalp gaped flaccidly and before he had moved the body over on its back...he knew whose face would be upturned towards his own.
Gender of detective: male
Wow, there's telling you nothing, and then there's telling you nothing! Take it away, Amazon:
FAITH HEALING CAN BE FATAL - When intrepid octogenarian Emily Pride inherits an island, and the miraculous properties of its "Pixie Falls" healing spring, she is shocked by all the vulgarity. The admission fee, the Gifte Shoppe, the folksy Festival, the neon sign on the pub, all must go! But local opposition runs high, death threats pile up, and Miss Emily's old friend Superintendent Roderick Alleyn arrives just in time to discover a drowned body and a set of murder motives that seem to spring eternal. The one other key fact that's left out: the dead body isn't Miss Emily's, but that of her most vocal opponent, the owner of the Gifte Shoppe.
This novel isn't set early in the series -- I suspect it's rather late, actually, but I couldn't prove it except by triangulating via the existence of Alleyn's wife and son. That's the thing with Marsh: she's better about character development and depth than Christie, but her characters don't run as deep (and as dependent on being read in the proper sequence) as Sayers.
It's a good book. A bit predictable -- there's a New Zealand girl, for example, who is involved with someone who is not guilty of the murder in the slightest. But then, the beauty of Marsh is that she is predictable. She won't get too wrapped up in psychology, nor let a character get away from her, nor yank the rug out from anyway. You always know what you're getting with her.
*
Kris is asleep on the futon, so it's down to Stef and me keeping each other awake. ('And sane,' says she. 'Bit late for that now, innit?' says me.) Four and a half more hours. Where's that Barq's?
Team Mariposa, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me (thank you,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
swankyfunk!)
Cover copy: It was one of those moments without time that strike at body and mind together with a single blow. A black shape, half-inflated, pulsed and moved with the action of the spring...
Alleyn had to get through the turnstile. He picked up a stone, hit it home and wrenched at the handle. There was a click and he was through and running to the spring. She was lying face down in the pool, only a few inches below the water. Her sparse hair rippled and eddied in the stream...The gash in her scalp gaped flaccidly and before he had moved the body over on its back...he knew whose face would be upturned towards his own.
Gender of detective: male
Wow, there's telling you nothing, and then there's telling you nothing! Take it away, Amazon:
FAITH HEALING CAN BE FATAL - When intrepid octogenarian Emily Pride inherits an island, and the miraculous properties of its "Pixie Falls" healing spring, she is shocked by all the vulgarity. The admission fee, the Gifte Shoppe, the folksy Festival, the neon sign on the pub, all must go! But local opposition runs high, death threats pile up, and Miss Emily's old friend Superintendent Roderick Alleyn arrives just in time to discover a drowned body and a set of murder motives that seem to spring eternal. The one other key fact that's left out: the dead body isn't Miss Emily's, but that of her most vocal opponent, the owner of the Gifte Shoppe.
This novel isn't set early in the series -- I suspect it's rather late, actually, but I couldn't prove it except by triangulating via the existence of Alleyn's wife and son. That's the thing with Marsh: she's better about character development and depth than Christie, but her characters don't run as deep (and as dependent on being read in the proper sequence) as Sayers.
It's a good book. A bit predictable -- there's a New Zealand girl, for example, who is involved with someone who is not guilty of the murder in the slightest. But then, the beauty of Marsh is that she is predictable. She won't get too wrapped up in psychology, nor let a character get away from her, nor yank the rug out from anyway. You always know what you're getting with her.
*
Kris is asleep on the futon, so it's down to Stef and me keeping each other awake. ('And sane,' says she. 'Bit late for that now, innit?' says me.) Four and a half more hours. Where's that Barq's?
Team Mariposa, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me (thank you,
swankyfunk!)