Rory Alleyn, giving a lecture, recounts a particularly interesting case involving his wife, art fraud, and a criminal team upon a boat.

Alleyn's wife Troy, having just had an exhibit installed, is about to return to London when she sees a last minute cancellation on a 5 day boat trip around "Constable Country". Knowing that her husband is in America on a lecture tour, and that she would be returning to an empty flat after an exhausting time preparing for the show, she takes the trip on the spur of the moment.

There she meets people of several different nationalities, including the English born doctor (of an Ethiopian father), an Australian priest, a rather annoying and intense English woman and an American brother and sister.

Troy finds out that her cabin was to be taken by a Greek man who has subsequently found dead in London.

Troy writes several letters to her husband, giving her impressions of not only the passengers but some of the peculiar events that happen to her in the first few days. Alleyn is back on the plane home by the time the first body is found.

Troy is (conveniently) shipped off to a local hotel as the book's focus shifts to her husband and his investigation of racism, art forgery, murder and crime syndicates.

This was an audiobook from Audible. and read by James Saxon (who has read other books, including others by Marsh). He is very capable in doing multiple accents and this certainly aids the "listening experience". (A brief look implies that he died in 2003).

The multiple timelines was a little difficult to settle to (Alleyn giving a talk about a time he was in America giving a talk whilst his wife was getting involved in an art crime), but on the whole, it was a diverting and pleasant time spent.



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Summary: Troy takes a spur-of-the-moment river cruise only to learn that her berth had belonged to a man murdered by an international criminal, who happens to be on the cruise with her!

Ngaio Marsh used an unusual narrative device to unfold this mystery. Alleyn is giving a lecture on this case to a group of police in training in the United States. It concerns an international criminal, the Jampot, as he is known, a shadowy figure behind a number illicit international businesses, and his apprehension occurs at the end of a riverboat cruise on which Troy was a last-minute ticketed passenger.

Alleyn has just finished a one-person show while her husband is in the U.S. She is in the country where John Constable did a number of his paintings, she notices a river cruise boat, the M.V. Zodiac, that has a last-minute opening and decides to take it to enjoy the country where one of her favorite artists, John Constable, painted. Or so she thought. Not long after she settles in, she learns that her cabin had been booked by a man just found murdered, and that the murder bore the signs of having been done by the Jampot. It is not thought likely that there was any other connection with the cruise, but Troy is encouraged to visit the local police in the various towns, using the cover of a missing fur coat from her exhibition.

She begins to wonder when a casual exclamation, “Oh, look –The place is swarming with Constables! Everywhere you look. A perfect clutch of them!” elicits an unusual reaction among the passengers. She was referring to scenes painted by Constable. It’s obvious they thought she meant something else. Then there is the pair of motorcyclists who remain in the vicinity. Is the Jampot among the passengers afterall? It is an interesting mixture of people. There is Dr. Natouche, the reserved Ethiopian doctor and amateur mapmaker, the American brother and sister eager to find treasures at a bargain, the Hewsons, the one-eyed Reverend Lazenby, an Australian minister who doesn’t seem like a man of the cloth, the racist Mr. Pollock, and the lepidopterist, Kaley Bard, who tries persistently to hit on Troy.

There is one other passenger, the eccentric, heavy snoring Hazel Rickaby-Carrick, who attaches herself to Troy. Pleading a headache one night when Hazel seemed to desperately want to tell her something, she sleeps in her cabin. The passengers learn from a telegram that she was called away and has left. And she has. Only it is Troy, who on their return journey spots her in a weir, floating, and very dead. It turns out that she has been strangled in the same fashion as the accomplice of the Jampot.

At this point Alleyn makes an early return, and he and his team take up the investigation, while Troy is dispatched to a hotel, getting her off the scene. Given that this was suggested by a couple of the passengers, I feared someone would slip away and attempt to kill her. Indeed, despite a police guard, someone does slip away in the fog, and someone is murdered before the denouement, when the murderer is revealed amid a “clutch” of suspects.

The device of Chief Inspector Alleyn narrating the story after the fact worked for me–it set the story apart from others in the series, while not being obtrusive. Troy’s removal to the hotel did not–it removed her from the narrative after a touching reunion with Rory. Others have noted the element of racism in the story. I think this makes it true to life, while I think Marsh gives us subtle clues of her own disapproval without editorializing. I loved the setting–it made a river cruise more inviting, with the chance to explore old English towns with shops and pubs–provide no murder was included. Then again, it is a great setting for a murder mystery weekend! ( )

Maybe even 4.5*

One aspect of this entry in the Alleyn series that I particularly enjoyed was the involvement of Troy. Her presence was especially fun as the case involved the discovery of a possible unknown painting by Constable.

Another unusual aspect was the way the story was told in alternating points of view: Troy as she experienced the events and Alleyn at some future time recounting the case to a class at the police college. ( )

This is a very enjoyable entry in the Inspector Alleyn series. We have a classic Closed Circle (river cruise) Mystery, with Troy Alleyn taking a bit of a break while doing some desultory painting. There’s quite a bit of art/antique background in the main storyline.

That story alternates with Alleyn himself using this case as a vehicle for lecturing a class of upcoming policeman. I thought the two viewpoints meshed well and didn’t detract from the suspense.

Inveterate mystery readers may be able to discern the culprit, but it’s not that obvious. This is a well-done mystery and highly recommended. ( )

Troy & Alleyn hunt a Con Man / Murderer
Review of the Fontana paperback edition (1977) of the 1968 original

Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn's artist wife Agatha Troy is the main lead for most of this book when she takes a last minute river cruise to relax after one of her art exhibitions. Alleyn is away in America but Troy is writing to him regularly (actually the most unbelievable part of the book is how fast the mail seems to have traveled in those days). Events on the boat cruise take a dark turn and it looks like Troy may be in danger as well. Alleyn rushes back from America to help solve the case.

The set-up here was well done with Alleyn recounting the case in retrospect as part of a police course. The characters on the boat cruise are all crafted to arouse suspicion in various ways either by appearing too innocent or too ill-tempered and/or neurotic. It did wrap up fairly quickly once the final scene was in motion so some things felt unresolved. And why was that Scotsman at Alleyn's course acting so peculiar? Still, a good outing for the series.

This was part of my current re-read project of works from the Golden Age of Crime of which many are still in my collection after first being read in the 1970s and 1980s. ( )