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Fiction. Mystery. HTML: Ngaio Marsh returns to her New Zealand roots to transplant the classic country-house murder mystery to an upland sheep station on South Island and produces one of her most exotic and intriguing novels. Parliament member Florence Rubrick has the wool pulled over her eyes�??quite literally. She's been found dead, her body pressed into a bale of wool. When Inspector Roderick Alleyn pays a visit to her New Zealand country home, he meets two fine, handsome men and two lovely young women, all of whom have reason to be grateful to dear Flossie for saving their lives. But as Inspector Alleyn learns, there are secrets aplenty hiding in the floorboards of that sheep station, and one in particular conceals a murderous motive that has the look and smell of treason.… (more)
User reviews
Given all those limitations the characters in this book are far more three dimensional than those of her previous book -- within the notable exception of the person "who did it".
Mount Moon station on the South
Marsh uses the setting as a country house, closed venue, mystery. There can only be a certain number of suspects, because of the isolation of the station. Alleyn arrives at Mount Moon over 18 months after Flossie Rubrick's murder and in fact after the death of her husband from illness.
One of the interesting ploys of the plot is that Alleyn assembles the main characters and gets them each to tell their opinions of the dead Flossie, who does not appear to have been a very nice character at all.
It was interesting to hear of the things that were concerning the characters (and by extension the author) late in the War. Flossie is very conscious that she must contribute to the war effort, although her offers of assistance to the War Cabinet in London have been repulsed. Three of the young people at Mount Moon station have already been "over there". The preoccupation with the possible presence of enemy agents is also interesting.
I thought there were a few things apart from the setting that dated the book. The style was a bit ponderous and the vocabulary contained words no longer in frequent use. The plot was very carefully crafted though and has worn well.
The hardest thing about listening to this one is that it features someone with a head wound, and I'm home listening to books as I recover from a concussion!
A bossy yet generous older woman, an MP in New Zealand, goes missing in the middle of WW 2. Three weeks later her body is found, stuffed in a bale of wool. Was it her
Usually I dislike the addition of possible spying or the like in my mysteries. Here, however, Marsh blends that right into the mystery plot. Almost the entire book consists of conversations, with dome action coming at the very end, and the plot is neatly tied up.
Recommended for those who like vintage mysteries, or those who just want something a little different from a good writer.
I listened to this as an audiobook in 2012, one of the few not narrated by James Saxon. I recently found a paper copy, slim enough to fit the handbag, so read again before letting it go.
This story was originally published in 1945,at the tail end of WWII.
On loan to New Zealand, investigating potential anti-war sympathies and trade secrets, Alleyn is called onto a sheep farm. The farm owner's wife - a local MP - died in suspicious circumstances 16 months before (she ended up in a wool bale). The couple are childless, and Flossie has spent her younger years collecting waifs and strays who still reside in the house - some of them people continue designing items for the war effort. It has been rumoured that some of those designs had been leaked (turns out to be true), which gives Alleyn the cover to go in and investigate.
The first third of the book has a lot of talking to set up the story and collect the deposition of those who remain on site who remember the incident. Lots of twists and turns, some suspects spotted earlier than others. Lots of talking in the first half, but that's one of the ways to get the info to the reader and a lot less dry than other routes.
Spread over a couple of days on a working farm in the middle of nowhere, Alleyn needs to find out not only who killed Flossie, but what he can about the stolen plans. Many of the group are hiding something from him, either to protect themselves or each other, even the dead.
It's always difficult to review books like this without giving away some of the plot so: sub 300 pages, with a large if rather restrained cast and the threat of WWII still hanging over people, and it's a decently plotted book, even if some of the events are sign posted a large distance away