Final Curtain (1947)

Blurb:

My review:

The author’s masterpiece, possibly superior even to Overture to Death.  Alleyn being away in New Zealand, Troy accepts a commission to paint a portrait of Sir Henry Ancred, Bt., a famous actor whose private life is a mixture of Kings Cophetua and Lear’s, and becomes involved with his large and excessively temperamental family, all but four of whom are notably unsympathetic.  The expected occurs: Sir Henry dies, apparently poisoned with arsenic, on the night he changes his will and quarrels with his family, and suspicion falls on the one person who benefits: the gold-digger fiancée.  What sets the book apart from others of its type are the characterisation (the family, admittedly two-dimensional, are painted with all Marsh’s skill, and are markedly more convincing than the ghastly Lampreys, while Alleyn’s relationship with Troy is treated in a more mature fashion than in the earlier books, as Marsh escapes from the shadow of Sayers); the quality of the detection (Alleyn actually thinks and reasons, showing every sign of being a devoted admirer of Dr. Thorndyke); and a well-constructed plot which combines a murder for gain from which the culprit derives no benefit, and a good, original poisoning (anticipating Christie by twelve years).  The fiend is well-hidden, but psychologically convincing.

To the Bibliography.

To the Ngaio Marsh Page.

To the Grandest Game in the World.

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