Book Review: A Surfeit of Lampreys

[osprey_archer]

Ngaio Marsh's A Surfeit of Lampreys (a.k.a. Death of a Peer) is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, and it almost made me late for work because I was so intent on finishing. It concerns a charmingly useless aristocratic family, the Lampreys. Although more good-natured than many charmingly useless aristocrats, they are quite as feckless as any of their brethren; they lurch continually from financial crisis to financial crisis without ever quite sinking under.

This time, however, things look rather dire if they can't convince their uncle to lend them a few hundred pounds... which he refuses... and afterward turns up dead in the lift to their flat.

As this means that Lord Charles, the father of the family, inherits his brother's estate and all the money accompanying it, naturally the whole family falls under suspicion.

The better part of the first half of the book is nearly a character study of the Lampreys, so it's almost a disappointment when the murder happens. Almost. The Lampreys remain delightfully Lampreyish throughout the murder investigation. (I felt rather sorry for Frid, though, never getting to have her police interview when she was so looking forward to it.)

I do wonder sometimes what it would have looked like if Marsh wrote a work of straight-up fiction rather than a murder mystery. I suppose that the murder mystery aspect gave her the bones of the plot ready-made, though - it's hard to imagine how the Lampreys' story would wind up without a murder - so I really can't fault her for continuing to use it.

Comments

[ladyherenya]

I like Surfeit of Lampreys! (My copy definitely doesn't have an 'A' at the start of the title, and this always surprises me - I keep expecting it to.)

I've wondered what a murder-free Marsh novel would look like, too. It's just occurred to me that there's perhaps greater potential for a murder-free - or rather, a murder investigation book - to revolve around concepts or messages that don't stand up to the test of time so well. Societies' attitudes towards many things changed a lot during the last century but the attitude towards murders and murderers is pretty much the same.

... which isn't to say that Marsh wouldn't have been capable of writing a good murder-free book, I don't know.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think a murder-free Marsh would look a lot like Surfeit of Lampreys, except instead of having a murder in the middle there would be... more focus on Roberta and Henry's romance, perhaps? Henry might actually manage to find that job he's been musing about all these years?

Or perhaps he and Roberta would elope to the continent. That sounds much more Lamprey-ish than settling down at a desk.

I also think that she could have written an excellent humorous novel set in a theater, given the elements of theatrical farce in some of her mysteries.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Hello, Lampreys! <3 Surfeit is Marsh at her best, even if I didn't completely love the solution to the mystery. I would totally read a murder-free sequel in which the Lampreys squander all their new money and maybe Roberta tries to help them be slightly less feckless, or something. It won't work, but hope springs eternal.

Murder investigation does force a shape onto the story, though Marsh is the only detective author (so far) where I've started to feel that the shape it imposes can be a hindrance as much as a help. Maybe that's an illusion, though.

And like ladyherenya says, unlike a lot of other potential themes, "you probably shouldn't go around murdering people" is a sentiment we can all get behind and unlikely to become stale with time.

(though it was a huge relief to me to read Marsh and Christie books set after the death penalty was abolished in Britain; it was so relaxing to know that whatever happened, no one was getting hanged at the end of this book).

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I must admit to a faint evil desire for the murderer to have been one of the Lampreys, although that would tear the poor family apart. But everyone insisted that it was impossible for one of them to have done it, and I wanted to see them proved wrong. Anyone can commit murder! No matter how charmingly helpless they seem!

Roberta will try in vain to set the Lampreys' finances on some sort of even keel. She fails, of course, but to be fair I'm not sure even Flora Poste could succeed in setting the Lampreys right.