Tue 22 Nov 2016
NGAIO MARSH – Night at the Vulcan. Little Brown, US, hardcover, 1951. First published in the UK as Opening Night (Collins, 1951). Reprinted many times in both hardcover and paperback.
It wasn’t until I’d finished this book and had done some research on it that I discovered that it was the sequel to the short story “I Can Find My Way Out” (EQMM, August 1946) in which a murder was committed in the same theater in a very similar fashion, with several of the same characters investigating, including Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn. One difference, however, is that in the earlier story the theater is called the Jupiter. In the novel, it is the Vulcan, as the American title has it, the building having been modernized in the meantime.
Marsh’s love for the theater comes through loud and clear in this book. (Nor of course is it the only one of her detective stories to take place with a theatrical setting.) Alleyn does not even make an appearance until page 147 of the paperback edition I read. Before that there is a long and wholly engrossing prelude to the tale as we follow the plight of a young girl and would-be actress from New Zealand looking for a job in London with barely a shilling to her name.
It’s a rag to riches story for her, beginning with being chosen by chance to be a dresser for the female star of a new play about to open, then to understudy to a female player who’s in the role only by her uncle’s insistence, and finally to playing the role herself on opening night. Overwhelming in the sudden change in fortune for her, yes, but the ride is also very exhilarating.
It’s too bad, then that she doesn’t get to enjoy it. Dead (suicide?) is the uncle, a tosspot no longer able to hold his own, and cuckolded husband of the female star Martyn Tarne was hired to be dresser for. The backstage drama that precedes this very momentous opening night, thus upstaged by the murder, is actually the stronger portion of the novel. The killer — it is not suicide — is obvious, but the motive is not, nor is it (regrettably) one that the reader has a way of knowing until Alleyn explains all at the end
Net result: quite enjoyable, but with a small caveat regarding the detective end of things.
November 22nd, 2016 at 2:00 pm
Thank you for a very good review!
Ngaio Marsh’s portrait of the theater is indeed remarkably vivid. Both the theater people and the setting come alive.
I’ve loved her books since being a teenager. The first theater mystery by her read here, FALSE SCENT, is still my favorite. ENTER A MURDERER and a book about performance (not quite a theater) DEATH OF A FOOL, are also very interesting.
Steve, I’d be interested in your reaction to the source story “I Can Find My Way Outâ€. It’s good, IMHO. Her whole story collection, known variously as “Alleyn and Others” or “The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh”, is good.
November 22nd, 2016 at 2:07 pm
I have a copy of that collection of Marsh’s crime fiction, but I don’t have access to it at the moment, being 3000 miles away from home for the holiday. I’d certainly like to read it myself, though, when I can. The puzzle itself is gone over in some detail in NIGHT AT THE VULCAN, but I still have the feeling that I’m missing something by not having it here at hand.
November 22nd, 2016 at 11:32 pm
This one struck me as Marsh enjoying writing a more or less straight theatrical novel and throwing in a murder and Alleyn at the end to satisfy fans and her publishers contract.
It’s a shame she and Allingham aren’t held in quite as high regard as Christie and Sayers. Both offer more than enough of their own pleasures and in some ways were probably better writers in many ways, if not always as dazzling.
November 23rd, 2016 at 1:50 am
I can’t disagree with your first paragraph, David. It wouldn’t have sold as a theatrical novel, but that aspect of it I found it quite enjoyable.
To go along with that, I think, in the sense that the murder and solution was largely tacked on, not only did I find the killer easy to spot, but what was very unusual is that I really didn’t know who the victim was going to be. In most detective novels it’s quite obvious from the start, and it’s set up that way.,