Reviews

Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh

tarshka's review against another edition

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2.0

Not much memorable about it for me.

pages_n_puzzles's review against another edition

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3.0

Liked the story, eventually, but not a great narrator on the audio book (very bad with accents). Interesting way of creating the story, and good characters.

cimorene1558's review

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3.0

In many ways this is a fine country-house murder mystery, but it's also quite harsh in many ways, and full of unhappy, screwed-up people.

missmary98's review

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5.0

I loved that one. The premise of the party was such a fun idea, and it was intriguing to see how things fell apart.

dawn_chen's review

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2.0

Reading for uni again. This was okay. I feel like the investigation bits has gone on for too long. I guessed the perpetrator pretty early on. I finished this sleep deprived. Don't rlly have much thoughts on it other than that random servant that starts dancing in the middle of the corridor just bc he heard some music lol.

david_megginson's review

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3.0

A trapped-by-the-snow mystery, reminiscent of Agatha Christie's earlier Three Blind Mice/Mousetrap and Murder on the Orient Express, or Lucy Foley's more-recent The Hunting Party.

michael5000's review

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4.0

This installment is such a blatantly contrived scenario for a parlor mystery as to be verging on self-parody. The choice of murderer is pretty arbitrary. But what the hell, I'm finding something pretty charming in the Alleyn mysteries as I continue along through them. In this one I enjoyed the long build-up -- I believe we're more than halfway through before we encounter a detective -- the verge-of-war setting, and the mid-century fascination with Freudian psychology. Plus, it has Fox and doesn't have Bathgate, which is as it should be.

ilariam's review against another edition

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4.0

Una delle più classiche ambientazioni per un romanzo poliziesco dell'epoca d'oro (una villa isolata) e un gruppo di personaggi legati da segreti rancori; che il tutto sfoci in un omicidio, può poi sorprendere?

L'abilità della Marsh sta tutta nel riuscire a creare una crescente suspense che accompagna il lettore per buona parte del libro: la morte, infatti, si palesa solo a racconto inoltrato, preceduta, però, da una costante tensione che non fa che incrementare progressivamente.

Il padrone di casa ha riunito, non certo casualmente, persone che sa avere motivi di conflitto, e non esita ad accendere micce; vuole inscenare un vero e proprio "dramma umano" con gli inconsapevoli attori.
Ci riesce piuttosto bene; peccato, però, che qualcuno ci rimetta la vita.

L'ingresso in scena di Roderick Alleyn è piuttosto tardivo, ed in fondo non è neanche così difficile intuire come siano andate davvero le cose, ma questo è un particolare di secondaria importanza, dato che nel frattempo il lettore è stato più che soddisfatto dall'atmosfera di insidia e pericolo, respirata pagina dopo pagina.

Consigliato a tutti gli amanti del giallo classico.

indianajane's review

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3.0

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this right now, but I didn't like it as well as I remember liking Ngaio Marsh when I read all of the Roderick Alleyn books as a teen.

shlee64's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5