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ngaio marsh agatha troy benedict cumberbatch artist agatha inspector alleyn roderick alleyn artists in crime inspector roderick golden age new zealand board ship artist model alleyn and troy marsh best back in england fun to read well plotted investigate a murder visiting his mother group of artists
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Patto
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5.0 out of 5 stars Alleyn deals with the artistic temperament
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2018
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First published in 1938, this book focuses on a group of artists taking a class with established artist Agatha Troy.

Chief Inspector Alleyn has shown himself susceptible to female charm in earlier books. But this time he falls seriously in love. He can’t give way to his feelings, however, because he has to focus on finding out who killed the artists’ model. All the artists are suspect, including the woman he loves!

The murder method is bizarre, and Alleyn’s investigation is complicated and full of fascinating interviews with the eccentric artists. A second, especially repulsive murder deepens the horrors, but offers a few clues – so subtle that it takes Alleyn’s artistic eye to spot them.

Alleyn’s mother appears in this novel, and she’s a charmer with Victorian manners and Edwardian wit. This is my favorite Ngaio Marsh mystery so far. I’m reading the series in order.
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Virginia Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Good story revealing the lives and actions of artists.
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2021
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The last Alleyn book examined actors and their personalities. This one examines artists, their personalities, and foibles. It is a complex story with the killer among a small group of artists in a prestigious school. Each is suspect in turn and there are numerous clues, many misleading as to who is the perpetrator. One conclusion seems inevitable and only at the end is it revealed that it is more nuanced than appears. An interesting feature of the book is a budding love affair, at least one on the Inspector's part with one of the artists. I hope this continues in the rest of the series as Alleyn needs a person in whom he can confide and who can comfort him. Compelling read.
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Bookaholic
5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Mystery
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2013
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If you've seen the PBS version, it's different. They took some artistic license with the video. This is real deal! Some intimate personal development, totally unrealistic to me but sweet, of the relationship between Alleyn and Troy. I enjoyed this one, recently put it on my kindle. I read it probably 30 years but couldn't remember how it had been wrapped up. I've started reading the Marsh/Alleyn books in order. I do find them very polite but it is more a worldview that I grew up with in the 50's-60's of courtesy and manners and standards of behavior. "Nice" people were shocked by some behaviors and found them distasteful.
These aren't hard-boiled thrillers to rush through. Instead note the social mores, the fashions, the political notes mentioned casually. Savor them and slow your life down and enjoy.
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D. M. Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars Like the author
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2021
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Unfortunately this Kindle copy has every word underlined, which I find distracting.
I like the older mysteries best.
The author can at times gets bogged down in details & some things can seem a little impossible - but it is fiction.
I do love Inspector Alleyn & Troy so that's why I keep coming back.
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Risa Reads
5.0 out of 5 stars Allen loses his heart
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2021
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It's almost difficult to remember how much times have changed in matters of the heart between and now! This story seems to revolve around the love lives of the characters-including Inspector Alleyn! This adds an interesting touch to Ms. Marsh's usual intricate plot.
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Glenda B
3.0 out of 5 stars AristoBrit-cute
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2018
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From the "Golden Age" of British mysteries, featuring highly contrived situations, and starring a cutely aristocratic detective deflecting any emotional depth with nicknames, aphorisms, and stiff but secretly trembling upper lip. It's a type. I used to love it, but after a 20-year hiatus not so much anymore. However, given the trope, this book is fun. Pip-pip!
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Another Stunning Ngaio Marsh Mystery
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2020
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Although I felt this one moved a little slow I still enjoyed it very much. Virtually almost all the characters were very unpleasant people. And as always I was very surprised as to who the murderer turned out to be.
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Harpy
5.0 out of 5 stars Charming Marsh novel
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2021
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Artists in Crime is a charming English murder mystery. For fans of Ngaio Marsh it is the start of the “Siege of Troy,” in which our hero-detective tries vainly to woo artist Agatha Troy.
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S Riaz
4.0 out of 5 stars Artists in Crime
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2018
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After struggling a little with Ngaio Marsh’s previous mystery, “Vintage Murder,” I was pleased to discover that I enjoyed the sixth in the series, “Artists in Crime,” a great deal more. In “Vintage Murder,” Roderick Alleyn was travelling and, in this book in the series, we see him returning to the UK. On board ship he meets, and falls for, artist, Agatha Troy. Miss Troy turns out to live at Tatler’s End House, close to Lady Alleyn, in Bucks.

Alleyn goes to visit his mother, while Agatha Troy has a group of students visiting. Along with her friend, Katti Bostock, there are a range of other visitors, including artists model, Sonia Gluck. When Sonia is found dead, Alleyn has to unravel the motives among a group of people who all have reasons to dislike the victim- including Agatha Troy.

I enjoyed this mystery and thought there was a good range of suspects and motives. I enjoyed meeting up with Nigel Bathgate and Fox again – I think I missed them in the previous book. Both Lady Alleyn and Agatha Troy seemed a little reminiscent of the Wimsey books to me. However, although Ngaio Marsh is considered one of the four ‘Queens of Crime,’ she does not seem, to me, to be quite as good as either Sayers, or Christie. Saying that, I look forward to reading on in the series.
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Richmonde
3.0 out of 5 stars This novel has many good points, but it is
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2017
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This novel has many good points, but it is, as others warn, overly gruesome. The action takes place at a country house that has been turned into an art school by a well-known painter, Agatha Troy. The enjoyable satire of pretentious art students (is nobody likeable?) is spoiled by Marsh's bizarre obsession with vomiting. OK, people may throw up when someone they know is murdered, but must we all go on and ON about it? Detectives being amusingly rude was a 20s and 30s thing, but here Troy is rude to her students (come on, they're PAYING you!), Alleyn is abusive to journalist Nigel Bathgate, Nigel is vile about the Australian Hatchet, the students are loathsome to each other, Miss Bostock relates how she yelled at the model who is playing up because "I treated her like a model". There are some rather posh students (Pilgrim, Seacliff and Malmsey), a couple of rough diamonds (Hatchet and Garcia), a rather ineffectual Frenchman and a lower middle-class girl who has been "ignored" by her upper-class fellow students at the Slade. (She is nice to Wat Hatchet, and despite her affectations she's the almost most sympathetic character. There's a chorus-girl friend of the model's who is genuinely warm-hearted.)

The little country art school has maids (OK someone has to do the housework), a cook (someone has to do the catering, too), and a butler who... does what exactly? Alleyn stays nearby with his mother, LADY Alleyn, who is spending her retirement weaving and bookbinding. When Alleyn sets out to investigate the murder, she rings for a maid TO BRING HER SON HIS COAT and a chauffeur TO GET THE CAR OUT OF THE GARAGE FOR HIM. But the worst thing, even worse than the snobbery and violence, is the way Miss Bostock, the detectives and presumably the original reader thinks it's OK to bully an artist's model because, well, she's only a model.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Murder as an art form
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2018
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Intense novel showing people's feelings and needs,introducing the reader to the love of Alleyns life,Troy.Nigel Bathgate ,Fox and the regular crew people this tale of murder and intrigue in the art world and over it all smiling sweetly is Alleyns mama ,a delightful insightful character who gives the reader a chance to see how Alleyn developed as a person.An intense book full of intrigue and action with deduction and finally denoument.An excellent,un putdownable novel.
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G H
5.0 out of 5 stars Story and actor of equal excellence !
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 16, 2016
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If you like traditional well written crime stories, this is for you. I've Liked Ngaio Marsh for years and admire the talented Benedict Cumberbatch, so an excellent pairing. He manages to do women's voices without sounding over-effeminate and all the other characters he portrays sound as if it's a different person acting, very clever. Story is good anyway and only a couple of bits edited out for time reasons I imagine. Very absorbing and a real pleasure.
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Damaskcat
5.0 out of 5 stars Murder and art
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 9, 2012
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Roderick Alleyn is on his way home from New Zealand when he meets artist, Agatha Troy, on board ship. He likes her but feels she is a little abrasive. When he returns to the UK to stay with his widowed mother for a short time he is asked to investigate a murder at Troy's house a few miles away.

Sonia - an artist's model - has been murdered in very ingenious way. All the artists studying with her are suspects - including Troy herself. Alleyn finds this very difficult to deal with as he is increasingly attracted to the prickly Troy and doesn't want to find out she has committed murder.

This is a very well plotted mystery which will keep readers guessing for quite a while. I failed completely to work out what had happened and who was responsible. When you look back then it is easy to see that the clues were there. I thought the artists' colony atmosphere was well drawn as were the artists themselves with their various temperaments.

This may be a crime novel without much graphic violence but the worst aspects of human nature are not glossed over. `Artists in Crime' is an enjoyable well written mystery with some likeable police characters and an interesting insight into Alleyn's relationship with his mother.
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