When in Rome (novel)

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When in Rome
WhenInRome.jpg
First edition
Author Ngaio Marsh
LanguageEnglish
Series Roderick Alleyn
Genre Detective fiction
Publisher Collins Crime Club
Publication date
1970
Media typePrint ()
ISBN 0-00-231889-X
Preceded by Clutch of Constables  
Followed by Tied Up in Tinsel  

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. [1]

Contents

The novel takes place in Rome, and concerns a number of murders among a group of tourists visiting the city; much of the action takes place in the "Basilica di San Tommaso".

Synopsis

The decadent Sonia, Lady Braceley and her nephew the Honorable Kenneth Dorne are depicted with relish and distaste as 'la dolce vita' at its most worthless, and given short shrift by Roderick Alleyn.

Apart from the typically unusual and subtle murder mystery, presented within Marsh's characteristic comedy of manners, the novel gives a fine description of Rome's sights, smells and sounds, and of its multi-layered architecture and history, seen from the perspective of an exclusive group of English-speaking tourists.

Development

Drug trafficking and drug abuse play a prominent part in several other Marsh novels: Enter a Murderer , Death in Ecstasy , Swing Brother Swing , Spinsters in Jeopardy , Clutch of Constables , Last Ditch and Grave Mistake . [2]

There is a description of a student demonstration, which Marsh herself witnessed briefly while in Rome as the guest of New Zealand's ambassador to Italy in summer 1968. Her biographer Margaret Lewis suggests the influence that this had on the novel: "the English upper classes are seen as thoroughly corrupt. Perhaps the heady politics of 1968 were reaching through, and the riot, described so lightly in the second edition of [Marsh's autobiography] Black Beech and Honeydew, disturbed her more than she wanted to admit". [3]

The hotel-rooftop garden where Grant broods over the loss of his manuscript was inspired by the roof of the pensione in Florence where Marsh stayed later on the same trip. [4] The New York Times noted the resemblance of the fictional San Tommaso basilica to Rome's San Clemente al Laterano basilica. [5]

Marsh made extensive enquiries into forensic details and Italian police procedure, with which she admitted struggling. On receipt of the manuscript in January 1970, her agent Edmund Cork wrote to her that it was her best novel to date, a verdict with which her American agent agreed. [6]

Reception

H.R.F. Keating wrote a very positive review for The Times , saying that Marsh's novels transcended the limits of genre fiction and reached the status of literature. In the case of When in Rome, he praised the novel's recreation of the Italian capital: "The book is not a puzzle struggling to dominate a setting. It is, shorn of distractions, a novel of place... under the outward appearances there is, pervading all, something suggestively disquieting, a fully evoked unease." [7]

Maurice Richardson concluded a capsule review in The Observer , "excellent Roman detailed background for a lively euphoric thriller whodunit". [8] Violet Grant in The Daily Telegraph called it "one of her best books for a long time". [9] Francis Goff in The Sunday Telegraph wrote, "Smooth, charming, with plenty of undemanding Roman background." [10]

When the novel was published in America by Little, Brown and Company the following year, The New York Times concluded a positive review, "Rome would be the best place to read it, but if an armchair in your living room is all that is available, you can console yourself with this homicidal travelogue." [5]

In 1981, Earl F. Bargainnier cited "the aging sybaritic Lady Sonia Braceley of When in Rome" as one of Marsh's most strikingly grotesque characters. [11] In a 2002 article on crime fiction set on the peninsula, Susan H. Jayne was dismissive of the book as a whole: "Helen MacInnes's cold war thrillers set in Italy stand up fairly well, but Ngaio Marsh's visit to Fellini's Rome does not." [12]

Adaptations

In 2003, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 60-minute adaptation of the novel starring Jeremy Clyde as Alleyn. [13]

In 1970–1972, Ngaio Marsh worked on a stage adaptation of the novel with Barbara Toy, but this was never produced. [14] [15]

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References

  1. ↑ McDorman, Kathryne Slate (1991). Ngaio Marsh . Boston: Twayne. pp. xiii–xiv. ISBN   0-8057-6999-4.
  2. ↑ Harding 1998, p. 671.
  3. ↑ Lewis 1998, pp. 201–202.
  4. ↑ Lewis 1998, p. 203.
  5. 1 2 Lask, Thomas (7 April 1971). "The Gentle Art of Murder" . The New York Times . p. 41. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  6. ↑ Lewis 1998, pp. 206–207.
  7. ↑ Keating, H.R.F. (12 November 1970). "Crime". The Times . No. 58021. p. 14.
  8. ↑ Richardson, Maurice (29 November 1970). "Crime Ration". The Observer . p. 30.
  9. ↑ Grant, Violet (11 December 1970). "Criminal Records". The Daily Telegraph . No. 35957. p. 8.
  10. ↑ Goff, Francis (13 December 1970). "Dirty work all round". The Sunday Telegraph . No. 513. p. 16.
  11. ↑ Bargainnier 1981, p. 96.
  12. ↑ Jayne, Susan H. (Winter 2002). "Recent Mystery Novels Set in Modern Italy" . Italian Americana . 20 (1): 115–117. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  13. ↑ "Pick of the Day". The Sunday Times . No. 9319. 6 April 2003. p. S10: 85.
  14. ↑ Lewis 1998, pp. 213–214.
  15. ↑ Lachman, Marvin (2014). The villainous stage : crime plays on Broadway and in the West End. McFarland. ISBN   978-0-7864-9534-4. OCLC   903807427.

Bibliography


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