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The Nursing Home Murder (1935)

di Ngaio Marsh

Altri autori: Vedi la sezione altri autori.

Serie: Roderick Alleyn (3)

UtentiRecensioniPopolaritàMedia votiCitazioni
8752724,398 (3.55)80
Fiction. Mystery. HTML:

For one unfortunate British politician, murder is the worst medicine: "An ingenious, logical, and sparkling tale." ??The New York Times
For Member of Parliament Sir Derek O'Callaghan, a simple visit to the hospital proves fatal. But as Inspector Alleyn will discover, any number of people had reason to help the gentleman to his just reward, including a sour surgeon, a besotted nurse, a resentful wife, and a cabinet full of political rivals, in this classic of detection by the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master.
"A peerless practitioner of the slightly surreal, English-village comedy-mystery." ??Kirkus Reviews
"It's time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around." ??New York Magazine
… (altro)

Aggiunto di recente daMarthaHudson, bdvoracek, jambavat, Selliers, Sbelcher, Ktenbus, galphin
Biblioteche di personaggi celebriEdward St. John Gorey
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» Vedi le 80 citazioni

I'm reading/listening to Ngaio Marsh/Inspector Alleyn stories out of order, so it can be a tad confusing when presented with an early in [return]the cycle story.[return][return]Originally published in 1935, this has the stereotypical characters - the out and out communists, still enamoured with the idea of the "all work together to over turn the upper class" (even though they'll happily take money to do a job until the reigning class have been overturned); the upper class Harely street private doctors and nurses; the MPs who'll work through whatever pain to pass the necessary bills only to die after being operated on.[return][return]It's not too taxing a book, bit silly (but that's the fun of Alleyn stories) so enjoyable none the less ( )
  nordie | Oct 14, 2023 |
Wat een volkomen waardeloos boek! Vroeger vond ik Marsh wel goed en dit is misschien sowieso één van de zwakste maar de toon de inhoud en de plot zijn beneden elk peil, ook voor de jaren 50. De minister van Binnenlandse Zaken wordt vermoord in een privékliniek en de mogelijke verdachten worden wel goed opgesteld. Maar de krankzinnige, hyper-conservatieve ideeën die alle hoofdpersonen blijkbaar aanhangen, dat wie geen Tory is een communist en een anarchist is -verschil daartussen is er niet, het zijn allemaal ongewassen onopgeleide proletariërs- zijn werkelijk verbijsterend. Maar de duidelijke klasseverschillen in de Engelse maatschappij die er in de jaren 50, en trouwens in de jaren 2000 nog steeds, waren storend me iets minder, waarschijnlijk omdat ik er meer aan gewend ben. Aristocraat Alleyn en middle class man Fox delen trouwens dezelfde politieke opvattingen. De dader en vooral zijn motief zijn buitengewoon zwak een onwaarschijnlijk. ( )
  Harm-Jan | Mar 27, 2023 |
Summary: The Home Secretary collapses of acute appendicitis during a speech on a key bill against radicals and is taken to a private hospital of an old doctor friend for emergency surgery, dying under suspicious circumstances soon after the operation.

Spoiler notice: The review includes a plot summary, without giving away the conclusion.

The Home Secretary, O’Callaghan, has put the final touches on a bill against anarchists and the Prime Minister’s cabinet is ready to press it forward. It will be dangerous for O’Callaghan, who will lead the effort. People have been assassinated for less. But O’Callaghan is fighting enemies on other fronts. He is suffering from the symptoms of appendicitis but is trying to gut it out until passage of the bill. Then there is the woman he’d had a sexual liaison with. Both were approaching it with a progressive attitude, except the woman, Jane Harden, cannot. She has fallen in love and written both touchingly and threateningly in several letters. Then a doctor friend, Sir John Phillips, who runs a private hospital nearby (the “nursing home” of the title) visits, not knowing O’Callaghan is ailing, and confronts him about the affair with Jane Harden, who is his theater nurse, and with whom he is in love. Jane will not consider him, having “given herself” to O’Callaghan. The meeting concludes unsatisfactorily, Phillips warning him, “You do well to keep clear of me” and threatening if he has the opportunity to “put him out of the way.”

His hypochondriac sister Ruth tries to help, pressing on him various patent medicines from her pharmacist friend as he tries to ignore the pain and get the bill through. Lady Callaghan remains more distant, not unsympathetic but letting him do what he must. But when he gets up to make a major speech on the bill, he collapses and under Lady O’Callaghan’s direction, unaware of the recent confrontation, is taken to Dr. Phillips hospital. He diagnoses a burst appendix, requiring immediate surgery. He wants to get another surgeon but Lady O’Callaghan insists he operate.

Dr. Philips is assisted by Dr. Thoms, an eccentric anesthetist Roberts, Sister Marigold, the head nurse, Nurse Banks a gruff nurse active in communist agitation and outspoken in her antipathy for O’Callaghan, and Nurse Harden. Various injections, including hyoscine, used for abdominal pain, are given. Phillips personally prepares the hyoscine injection and administers it. The operation comes off but O’Callaghan’s pulse is weak, his condition worsens and he dies shortly after.

It was thought this was due to the neglect of the appendicitis but Lady O’Callaghan suspects foul play, having come into possession of the letters from Jane Harden and learned from O’Callaghan’s personal secretary, Jameson, that Phillips had spoken threateningly to O’Callaghan. She speaks to Alleyn, who had been handling security on a discrete basis for the Home Secretary, and he is persuaded there is credible cause for an autopsy and inquest. The coroner finds he’d received on overdose of the hyoscine, enough to easily kill him.

Beyond the obvious suspect, Dr. Phillips, Alleyn must consider a host of possibilities. Jane Harden certainly had motive. Nurse Banks hated what O’Callaghan stood for and was active in the communist party. Was she part of a plot to kill him? Roberts was also at the party meeting. Dr. Thoms happened to talk about the lethal dose of hyoscine. Was Ruth an unwitting accomplice in his death? What was in the patent medicines mixed by the pharmacist, who also happened to be part of the local communist party?

In addition to the intrepid Fox, Alleyn draws upon the help of his newspaper friend Bathgate and his girlfriend Angela, who help with a bit of undercover work at a party meeting. None of this seems to bring him closer to the killer, although Alleyn has growing suspicions, until a fluke event exposes the killer.

This is classic Marsh–a host of suspects, an effort to follow movements to see who really had motive, means, and opportunity, with a lot of cogitating with Fox and Bathgate. It can seem a bit formulaic at times, although I’ve always liked the books with Bathgate. But formulas can be like recipes, it’s the little “extras” that keep the dish from being ho-hum. The batty siater, Ruth, the crusty communist, Nurse Banks, the eccentric Roberts with his crazy theories, and the noble Roberts who we so want not to be guilty and to find love with Nurse Harden, that makes it all interesting. ( )
  BobonBooks | Jan 30, 2023 |
Book number three in the Roderick Alleyn mystery series by renowned New Zealand writer Ngaio Marsh. This time Inspector Detective Alleyn is called to investigate the death of a Britain’s Home Secretary. Sir Derek O’Callahan had been complaining of abdominal pain for some days, but it wasn’t until he collapsed that he went to hospital. By then his abscessed appendix had burst and emergency surgery was needed. The operation was a success but Sir Derek died shortly thereafter. His wife insisted on an inquest and the results showed an overdose of a particular drug. But who administered it?

As is typical of Marsh’s writing there is little exposition or description and a lot of dialogue and repetition. There are plenty of suspects – including a vengeful surgeon, a nurse (whose a former lover), an unhappy wife, and a host of political foes - and more than few red herrings. There’s also a subplot involving Bolsheviks that clearly places the reader in the timeframe.

Marsh is frequently compared to the other “Queens of Crime” of the early 20th century (Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers for example). Her work has endured for nearly a century, but I am not much of a fan. This is the third of her books I’ve read and the third time I’m giving one of her books two stars. ( )
  BookConcierge | Dec 26, 2021 |
Eh. A rather silly plot, Ngaio Marsh apparently didn't understand that communists and anarchists aren't the same thing, and there's quite a bit of classism (the privately-educated detective sneers in a very unedifying way about the working-class rank-and-file policeman who's trying to teach himself French; Tories are all sensible chaps while anti-capitalist working class people are referred to as children). Plus, while I know that the "maybe there's something to this 'rational breeding' thing" attitude was fairly commonplace in 1935, reading such attitudes expressed with apparent authorial approval in a post-WWII world can't but induce a case of the yikes.

Marsh does push things on at a brisk clip, and she does a good job of conjuring up the environment of a private hospital in a wealthy part of London in the interwar years. I'll maybe give one more book from the series a chance, but Roderick Alleyn better get at least 10% less insufferable, and there needs to be 100% less eugenicist content. ( )
  siriaeve | Mar 17, 2021 |
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» Aggiungi altri autori (9 potenziali)

Nome dell'autoreRuoloTipo di autoreOpera?Stato
Ngaio Marshautore primariotutte le edizionicalcolato
Berglöf, UllaTraduttoreautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
Duffy, StellaIntroduzioneautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
Franks, PhilipNarratoreautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
Jellett, Henryautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
Saxon, JamesNarratoreautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
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for "THAT ONE"
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The Home Secretary, with an air of finality, laid down the papers from which he had been reading and glanced round the table.
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Fiction. Mystery. HTML:

For one unfortunate British politician, murder is the worst medicine: "An ingenious, logical, and sparkling tale." ??The New York Times
For Member of Parliament Sir Derek O'Callaghan, a simple visit to the hospital proves fatal. But as Inspector Alleyn will discover, any number of people had reason to help the gentleman to his just reward, including a sour surgeon, a besotted nurse, a resentful wife, and a cabinet full of political rivals, in this classic of detection by the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master.
"A peerless practitioner of the slightly surreal, English-village comedy-mystery." ??Kirkus Reviews
"It's time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around." ??New York Magazine

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