Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh

A local busybody is silenced for good in this tale by “a peerless practitioner of the slightly surreal, English-village comedy-mystery” (Kirkus Reviews). In their Dorset village, neither Miss Campanula nor her friend Miss Prentice are known as lovable little old ladies. They’re waspish, gossiping snobby little old ladies, passionate only about their amateur theatrical productions, their narrowly defined opinions about how everyone else should behave . . ..and, perhaps, about the local vicar. But could one of them have been sufficiently unpleasant to provoke a murderer? For Miss Campanula has perished on her piano bench—and it’s unclear whether Miss Prentice may have been the actual intended victim . . . “A goodie.” —Kirkus Reviews “It’s time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around.” —New York Magazine “In her ironic and witty hands the mystery novel can be civilized literature.” —The New York Times

A surprisingly refreshing and unique murder mystery that kept me hooked from start to end!

In the small town of Chipping, some of its principal inhabitants are getting ready to stage an amateur play for charity. Miss Prentice, the middle-aged cousin of the local squire, successfully wrestles the part of playing the play's overture from her best frenemy Miss Campanula. Unfortunately, a swollen and inflamed finger puts a damper on things and finally forces Miss Prentice to give way to Miss Campanula last minute just before the performance. But when Miss Campanula strikes up the first three chords of her infamous Prelude and puts her foot on the soft pedal - a gun goes off from inside the piano.

In terms of the mystery, my very first initial suspicion of the culprit turned out to be correct (thanks for the training, Agatha Christie!) but that doesn't mean that the mystery was in any way predictable. Marsh did a great job leading me on a wild goose chase and I changed my suspicions around almost the entire cast of characters before the final answer was revealed.

The characters themselves were not exactly endearing, but they certainly jumped off the pages at you, especially the two main church hens of Miss Prentice and Miss Campanula. I enjoyed the characterisation of them all immensely. The only complaint I'd have is that Marsh really writes her female characters viciously. I get that this book and the character dynamics within it are a product of their times, but it was still hard to read when we barely get a single female character that we can get behind (the only one perhaps being Dinah Copeland). It also always seemed that all the women in this novel hate and plot against each other, and usually because of the way they related to men. I've read some of Marsh's other works but I don't recall if this was as prominent in them as it was here.

I love golden era cosy murder mysteries for three of its main characteristics: the interesting-ness of the puzzle/mystery, sorting out the red herrings and the actual clues, and finally finding out the answer in the end with everything wrapped up in a neat little bow. In those aspects, I think this book definitely hit the spot, hence my high rating for it. When it comes to gender relations and stereotypes, honestly very few of the books from the 20's and 30's will hold up to intense scrutiny (some better than others though), so I've learnt to turn a blind eye to that, even if it's not something I would be able to look past for a book written in the past 20 years. So if you can look past that dynamic, the mystery and character work of this book is definitely magnificent and well done.