Money in the Morgue

Starred review from September 10, 2018
Duffy (The Hidden Room) does an excellent job building a taut atmospheric whodunit based on the opening chapters and a few notes that Marsh (1895–1982) left behind for her 33rd mystery featuring Scotland Yard’s Chief Det. Insp. Roderick Alleyn. During WWII, Alleyn takes on a sensitive undercover assignment at a New Zealand military hospital, Mount Seager, after counterespionage suspects that radio transmissions from its vicinity are intended for the Japanese. Alleyn poses as a Mount Seager patient, a writer suffering from a nervous disorder. For a week, he discovers nothing of significance, until he’s confronted with “a major robbery, the missing corpse of an elderly man, and the found body of the most senior and longest-serving staff member in the hospital.” A storm that cuts off the hospital from the outside world hampers Alleyn’s efforts to sort out what happened. Duffy’s facility at injecting wit into fair-play detecting will make Marsh fans hope she’ll continue the series. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Gernert Co.

Starred review from October 15, 2018
Marsh, one of the queens of Golden Age crime fiction, along with Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, penned the first 32 Roderick Alleyn mysteries between 1934 and 1982. This novel, started by Marsh during WWII but then abandoned, is now artfully threaded together, using the original first chapters and author notes, by mystery writer Duffy. Set during a storm in a remote New Zealand hospital, the tale takes the form of a one-night drama, which inexorably unfolds under the watchful eye of much-lauded London detective Alleyn, who is in the country on an undisclosed secret mission. A multitude of characters, all stuck in place and hiding secrets that only Alleyn can tease out of them, play their roles?vicar, matron, soldier, doctor, nurse?against a background of ancient Maori traditions, a tumble-down hospital overgrown in roses, and, of course, murder. Told with subtle humor, this midsummer masque, more nightmare than dream, features a remarkably complicated and satisfying plot, very much in the Golden Age tradition of Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. In a different way, the book also could be a good fit for readers who love the combination of native culture and mystery found in Arthur Upfield's Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte series, set in Australia.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)