There is an elaborate plan for the performance, with one number involving a gun with blanks (personally, I would want my band to play music, not act out cowboy fantasies). This is obviously a terrible idea, so we know someone will die, if not who. A confusing and not-very-interesting subplot involves an agony aunt column that uses the moniker, GPF, which stands for Guide, Philosopher, and Friend. Félicité, complaining about her possessive boyfriend, and Lady Pastern, complaining that her annoying husband is encouraging the unsuitable boyfriend, have each written to GPF for advice.
Once Breezy Bellairs’ Boys performance has gone to hell in a handbasket and someone has died, the police are quickly summoned. The team is led by Inspector Fox, promoted since the last time I encountered him, when he was just Roderick Alleyn’s Sergeant. Surprisingly, Chief Inspector Alleyn turns up soon because he and his wife, Troy, were actually at the night club for the evening. As is often the case, Alleyn’s upper class background reassures those being questioned but even his suavity is seriously ruffled by the antics of Lord Pastern.
The investigation involves a tedious amount of discussion about the plan to use the gun and the gun itself. While I understand it is important for Alleyn to determine who had access to the gun to replace the blanks, I was more interested in Carlisle and her family than the band members.
• When Alleyn realizes he’s been backstage investigating the death for hours, forgetting his wife, Fox reveals he sent Troy a note. She had gone home but left them “a lively drawing of a lady asleep in bed. Above her, encircled by a balloon, Alleyn and Fox crawled on all fours inspecting, through a huge lens, a nest from which protruded the head of a foal, broadly winking.”
• In the middle of the investigation, Carlisle and Ned, cousins who grew up spending holidays with their eccentric relatives, realize they are in love but there is a misunderstanding about the GPF letters that keeps them at arm’s length.
• Alleyn’s demeanor to Fox always seems very condescending but there is genuine affection behind it. During a brief stop at their flat for baths, a shave, and a few hours of sleep, he asks Troy if he can share their news with Fox and does so by saying, “Did you know you were going to be a godfather, Br’er Fox?”
• There’s a hint that Lord Pastern’s next obsession will be crime investigation, despite his antagonism to Alleyn. “How young,” Lord Pastern demanded suddenly, “does a fellar have to be to get into detection?”
Perhaps not one of her best but I had forgotten this couple had any children, so that was an interesting development. Br'er Fox is a prominent character in the African-American southern folk tales popularized by Joel Chandler Harris in his Uncle Remus stories and is used as a fond nickname by Alleyn, which Mr. Fox accepts with dignity. I think I read a later version in the Thornton Burgess books that belonged to my father.
Author: Ngaio Marsh
Publication: Little, Brown & Co., Hardcover, 1949
Genre: Mystery/Series
Source: Library
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
• 1949 Club
• Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge
1 comment:
Also known as Swing, Brother Swing I discovered.
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