I love the bits about the black cat Lucy. ( )

Summary: The President of Ng’ombwana is coming to England. A man with known enemies, his old school friend Alleyn attempts to persuade him to accept Special Branch protection but fails to prevent a murder at an embassy reception.

Retired Foreign Officer Sam Whipplestone thought the house on Capricorn Walk would make a pleasant place after his years of foreign service. Little did he realize that he would have one more assignment and that a tenant (Mr. Sheridan) and his house servant, Chubb would have a part. Nor did he realize that the bedraggled cat who adopted him, who he names Lucy Lockett, would uncover a key clue.

Meanwhile, Alleyn has drawn the unenviable assignment of trying to persuade “Boomer,” a former classmate now risen to the presidency of Ng’ombwana, to accept Special Branch protection while visiting London, and to refrain from unplanned excursions, adding to his risk. There had been attempts on his life and he had enemies. But he stubbornly believes in his invincibility. He reluctantly accepts some protection while relying on his ambassador in London to secure the embassy. He even arranges to have Troy paint his portrait, which she gladly accepts. He is a stunning subject.

All goes well until a gala reception at the embassy, at which Chubb hires on as wait staff. A shot is fired, lights go out, Alleyn, who is present as friend, shoves the president down. When the lights come back on they find the ambassador has been pierced through with the spear of the mlinzi, the president’s spear carrier. Chubb, nearby, had been knocked down and the mlinzi claimed to have been struck from behind, incapacitating him.

The embassy’s own investigation fails to turn up a murderer and the President is convinced that the murderer is not to be found among his people. That’s when the inhabitants of Capricorn Walk become of interest. A fish medallion brought to Sam Whipplestone by Lucy Lockett uncovers a group of conspirators on Capricorn Walk and in the Capricorn Mews, all with a grievance against the Boomer. Colonel Cockburn-Montfort had organized the Ng’ombwanan military, and then was dismissed. Chubb, a former commando, had suffered the rape and death of his daughter by a Ng’ombwanan. Sheridan, under the name of Gomez, was prosecuted by the Boomer for manslaughter and on being convicted vowed revenge. And the Sanskrits had been expelled from Ng’ombwana for corruptions of various sorts.

Alleyn must find the murderer from among these suspects. The question is whether the ambassador or the president was the target. The ambassador was standing after the fired shot, so it was possible that he was mistaken for the president in the confusion. All of this strains his friendship as he has to navigate the issues of race and respect for a nascent nation, former colony, asking the hard questions of a police officer while respecting the wishes of his friend, a former head of state.

I found this one of the more interesting of Marsh’s works. She chooses a very different setting–neither the theatre nor a country estate. Sam Whipplestone functions as a kind of “Watson,” while learning how different police work is from diplomacy. Marsh portrays the racism of the time, with characters using words not politically acceptable today. Also, a cat has a key role. And the Boomer is a complicated character, chiding Alleyn’s deference at some points, urging him to unbend, acting imperiously when national dignity is on the line, and with disregard for his own safety, accepting the risk of political office and indulging the notion of invulnerability. Even Alleyn reflects a deepening self-awareness of the path he has chosen, the calling he has answered, in contrast both with Whipplestone and the Boomer. ( )

A good old-fashioned murder mystery. Just like I like them. ( )

This one of Marsh’s later murder mysteries. The president of a (fictional) newly-independent African country visits London and a murder occurs at the embassy.

This one is a mixture of things I really like and things I eyed warily. Marsh is clearly sympathetic towards African people and racial issues, and so is her detective, but they are not always wholly successful at being so. There are some odd moments in which dated attitudes… leak through. Marsh wrote this in her late 70s and, considering what the attitudes of her day were, I’m actually surprised and relieved that there aren’t more moments like that. Not everyone’s going to want to give Marsh points for trying (and understandably so) but I am inclined to.

Anyway, onto the other things.

This is very atmospheric. It’s a few years since I read a Marsh mystery and I’d forgotten just how atmospheric her stories can be and that I enjoy her prose. There’s a storyline about a recently-retired member of the Foreign Service, who buys a new house and adopts a cat, and both he and his cat are instrumental in solving the mystery.

But my favourite part was that there’s more of the now-Superintendent Roderick Alleyn’s personal life. (The very first Marsh mystery I picked up delighted me because here was a detective who had a personal life!) Troy, Alleyn’s wife is involved; his brother turns up briefly; and the president is an old school friend and their interactions are peppered with references to their school days.

“The Boomer”, as the president is called, and Alleyn were good friends at school, and when they meet years later, they still like and respect each other, but they don’t always agree. As the Boomer reminds Alleyn, that’s long been the case: “And you said there were plenty of territories we could explore without meeting such barriers and we’d better stick to them.”
But they’re not just old friends now; they’re thrown together in their professional capacities of a British policeman and an African president, and they have to navigate their differences - specifically that their cultures have different ways of doing things.
The Boomer is a complicated, compelling character. I was interested to note that there is more respect and affection and indications of like-mindedness between him and Alleyn than there is between Alleyn and his older brother (who is a British peer).

I love that Troy appears in this. I love the tiny details of their marriage, like Alleyn’s tendency to look at a scene with “double-vision”, as policeman and as a man married to a painter, or Troy’s ability to tell Alleyn with one look that she’s seen someone she wants to paint.
And I love that Troy doesn’t just appear as an ancillary to Alleyn - she has her own career and that’s important to both of them.

”Wouldn’t it be simpler,” Fox ventured, “under the circumstances, I mean, to cancel the sittings [for your wife’s current painting]?”
“Look here, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said. “I’ve done my bloody best to keep my job out of sight of my wife and by and large I’ve made a hash of it. But I’ll tell you what: if ever my job looks like so much as coming between one dab of her brush and the surface of her canvas, I’ll chuck it and set up a prep school for detectives.”
After a considerable pause, Fox said judiciously: “She’s very lucky to have you.”
“Not she,” said Alleyn. “It’s entirely the other way round. In the meantime, what’s cooking? Where’s Fred?” ( )

Wanda McCaddon does a great narration & her voice for Inspector Alleyn's school friend Boomer was particularly excellent.

As for the book itself, I was surprised to find that this is a Marsh that I had not previously read. I have seen in some of the other reviews that some people had problems with this book's treatment of race. Certainly some of the characters were racist but just as clearly others were not. If you are sensitive about this issue, then it might be better to skip this one.

I thought that the mystery was well done but one big section of the solution was clear to me soon after the initial murder so I reduced my rating by ½ star. ( )