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A review by smcleish
Spinsters in Jeopardy by Ngaio Marsh
2.0
Originally published on my blog here in October 1998.
Much though I think Ngaio Marsh writes better when she goes beyond the standard situations of the crime genre, Spinsters in Jeopardy doesn't really work. It is a thriller rather than a detective story; the identities of the bad guys are known from the start and it is just a matter of accumulating evidence, which is done by infiltrating their headquarters - a medieval castle now the home of an exotic cult which is a cover for a drugs cartel - and catching them in their vile activities. In fact, she has exchanged the conventional gestures of [a:Agatha Christie|123715|Agatha Christie|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1321738793p2/123715.jpg] for those of second-rate thirties thrillers, and she should really have left them alone.
Aside from this, Spinsters in Jeopardy has a distinctly stereotypical view of the French character, which reminds one of more chauvinistic writes such as Christie, and it also suffers by reusing several elements from earlier - and superior - Marsh novel about a conman running a cult as a front for drug smuggling ([b:Death in Ecstasy|835692|Death in Ecstasy|Ngaio Marsh|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311984073s/835692.jpg|868812]).
All in all, this is one of her books that is perhaps best avoided.
Much though I think Ngaio Marsh writes better when she goes beyond the standard situations of the crime genre, Spinsters in Jeopardy doesn't really work. It is a thriller rather than a detective story; the identities of the bad guys are known from the start and it is just a matter of accumulating evidence, which is done by infiltrating their headquarters - a medieval castle now the home of an exotic cult which is a cover for a drugs cartel - and catching them in their vile activities. In fact, she has exchanged the conventional gestures of [a:Agatha Christie|123715|Agatha Christie|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1321738793p2/123715.jpg] for those of second-rate thirties thrillers, and she should really have left them alone.
Aside from this, Spinsters in Jeopardy has a distinctly stereotypical view of the French character, which reminds one of more chauvinistic writes such as Christie, and it also suffers by reusing several elements from earlier - and superior - Marsh novel about a conman running a cult as a front for drug smuggling ([b:Death in Ecstasy|835692|Death in Ecstasy|Ngaio Marsh|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311984073s/835692.jpg|868812]).
All in all, this is one of her books that is perhaps best avoided.