 First edition | |
| Author | Ngaio Marsh |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Roderick Alleyn |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
Publication date | 1978 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 278 |
| ISBN | 0-00-231267-0 |
| Preceded by | Last Ditch |
| Followed by | Photo Finish |
Grave Mistake is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the thirtieth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1978. The plot concerns the supposed suicide of a wealthy widow in a chic rest spa, and involves a rare and famous postage stamp.
At a Women's Institute meeting in Quintern Place, the beautiful home of The Honorable Sybil Foster, a wealthy widow, we meet or hear of the characters who populate the idyllic Kentish village of Upper Quintern: Sybil's childhood friend, the West End playwright Verity Preston, their daily help Mrs Jim Jobbin and gardener Angus McBride, the vicar, the local GP and others.
Sybil and Verity both live in houses inherited from their fathers. The "rhythms of life" of this highly traditional, class-structured community are described as having changed little "in spite of war, bombs, crises and inflation" [1] except for the arrival of Nikolas Markos, a suave, exotic multi-millionaire. Markos has bought and refurbished the nearby Mardling Manor. At a dinner party, Markos introduces another outsider, Dr Basil Schramm, newly arrived medical incumbent at Greengages Hotel, a classy, expensive health retreat, where Sybil Foster is a frequent guest.
Verity is disconcerted to recognise Schramm as Basil Smythe, a former medical student of her father's, who had seduced and then dropped her 25 years previously.
The next outsider to arrive is Bruce Gardener, a strapping ex-soldier with an ersatz Scottish persona and accent, whose services as a skilled gardener are in demand following the sudden death of Mr McBride. Claude Carter, Sybil's stepson by her first marriage, an unprepossessing remittance man and petty criminal, is newly returned from Australia with the police on his trail.
Sybil has taken herself off to Greengages, where she receives visits from most of the suspects, including her daughter Prunella, recently engaged to Markos' son Gideon. That evening, Sybil is found dead in her hotel room, apparently having committed suicide with an overdose of barbiturate pills taken in whisky. A final suspect is the hotel's luscious Sister Jackson. She puts Alleyn privately in mind of TV comedian Dick Emery's character 'Mandy'. Sister Jackson is jealous of her lover Basil Schramm's burgeoning intimacy with Sybil.
When Sybil's newly revised will appears, its dispositions prove shockingly unexpected, and the resulting suspicions bring Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn to Quintern and Greengages, with his team of Detective-Inspector Fox and Thompson (photography) and Bailey (fingerprints).
In the background lurks the 'Black Alexander', a priceless postage stamp, which disappeared when Sybil's first husband Maurice Carter was killed in a bombed train, returning from Quintern Place to London during the War. Was this treasure on his person when he died, or did he hide it for safety somewhere about Quintern Place? The murderer is[ who? ]
Newgate Callendar (pseudonym for Harold C Schonberg), writing in The New York Times, found this novel, a traditional mystery featuring the suave Alleyn, to be one popular with fans of Ngaio Marsh, but other readers might find it "just a mite slow‐moving." [2]
Marsh's first biographer, Margaret Lewis [3] suggests that, once again, the author's depiction of Quintern drew on her visits to the Rhodes family, her lifelong friends, in the Kentish village of Birling, quoting Marsh's admission that "Birling has a strong tendency to pop up when least expected" and a letter in which Marsh regrets that "however much I try to discipline myself as to plot and general whodunnitry, I always find myself writing about a set of people in a milieu that, for one reason or another, attracts me. And then... I have to involve them in some crime or other. Does this mean one is a straight novelist manquée?".
Later biographer Joanne Drayton [4] also comments on the struggles Marsh faced with a book she described in a letter to her agent Edmund Cork as having "hung round my neck like the Ancient Mariner's Albatross" and "been interrupted so often by illness".
Set in and around the fictional village of Upper Quintern in England's Weald of Kent, it is the last of Marsh's "cosy" English village mysteries, and was followed by Photo Finish (1980), her final novel set in New Zealand, and Light Thickens (1982), her final novel with a theatrical setting.
The book was well received and sold well, as the author wrote in 1979 to a friend: "Grave Mistake seems to be beating all records in the U.S.A. It has sold 22,000 copies... & [is] still going strong" (quoted in Joanne Drayton's biography). [5]
Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand mystery writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966.
Roderick Alleyn is a fictional character who first appeared in 1934. He is the policeman hero of the 32 detective novels of Ngaio Marsh. Marsh and her gentleman detective belong firmly in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, although the last Alleyn novel, Light Thickens, was published in 1982.
Death at the Bar is a crime novel by Ngaio Marsh, the ninth to feature her series detective Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard and published in 1940 by Collins (UK) and Little, Brown (USA).
Final Curtain is a 1947 crime novel by the New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh, the fourteenth in her series of mysteries featuring Scotland Yard detective Roderick Alleyn. It was published in Britain by Collins and in the USA by Little, Brown. The plot features the world of actors, and Alleyn's wife, the artist Agatha Troy, has a main role in the story.
The Nursing Home Murder (1935) is a work of detective fiction by New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh and Henry Jellett. It is the only book Marsh co-authored.
A Man Lay Dead is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the first novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1934. The plot concerns a murder committed during a detective game of murder at a weekend party in a country house.
Vintage Murder is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the fifth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1937. Based in New Zealand, the plot centres on a travelling theatrical troupe and prominently features Doctor Rangi Te Pokiha, a Māori, and a "tiki" (hei-tiki) a Māori fertility pendant.
Artists in Crime is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the sixth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1938. The plot concerns the murder of an artists' model; Alleyn's love interest Agatha Troy is introduced.
Overture to Death is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the eighth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1939. The plot concerns a murder during an amateur theatrical performance in a Dorset village, which Alleyn and his colleague Fox are dispatched from Scotland Yard to investigate and duly solve.
Death and the Dancing Footman is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh, the eleventh of her Roderick Alleyn books and was first published in 1941 in the US by Little Brown of Boston and in 1942 in the UK by Collins Crime Club. It was written in New Zealand, but set in a Dorset, England country house.
Colour Scheme is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the twelfth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1943 by Collins Crime Club. The novel takes place in the Northland region of New Zealand during World War II; the plot involves suspected espionage activity at a hot springs resort on the coast of New Zealand's Northland region.
Swing, Brother, Swing is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the fifteenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1949 in the UK. The novel was published as A Wreath for Rivera in the United States. The plot concerns the murder of a big band accordionist in London.
Opening Night is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the sixteenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1951. It was published in the United States as Night at the Vulcan.
Spinsters in Jeopardy is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the seventeenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1954. The novel is set in Southern France, where Alleyn, his painter wife Agatha Troy and their young son Ricky are on holiday. Alleyn is tasked by his Scotland Yard superiors with meeting French police colleagues to discuss international drug trafficking through Marseilles.
Scales of Justice is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh. it is the eighteenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1955.
Off with His Head is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the nineteenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn. It was first published in the USA by Little, Brown of Boston in 1956, under the title Death of a Fool, and in the UK by Collins in 1957.
Singing in the Shrouds is a detective novel by New Zealand writer Ngaio Marsh; it is the twentieth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1959. The plot concerns a serial killer who is on a voyage from London to South Africa.
False Scent is a detective novel by New Zealand writer Ngaio Marsh; it is the twenty-first novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1959, by Collins in the UK and Little, Brown in the USA. The plot concerns the murder of a West End stage actress during her 50th birthday party, and continues Marsh's fascination with the theatre and with acting.
When in Rome is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the twenty-sixth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1970.
Photo Finish (novel) is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the thirty-first, and penultimate, novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1980. Set in a millionaire's island mansion on a lake in New Zealand's South Island, it is the last of Ngaio Marsh's four New Zealand set novels - the others being Vintage Murder (1937), Colour Scheme (1943) and Died in the Wool (1945).