Book Note: Ngaio Marsh, Death of a Peer

This is book 10 of the "Roderick Alleyn" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

A cool old one. Starts out with a moderately extended portrait of the Lamprey family, which is really very nicely done. And then a murder happens, and Alleyn arrives to unwind it. A rather nasty murder, an old man skewered through the eye in an elevator. His wife doesn't notice until half-way down.

Once again contains the beginning of a pleasant-looking romance. No trace of the theater. New Zealand features in the beginning pretty prominently.

Ends amusingly, too, with the Lamprey's preparing to deal with their new "poverty", having just acquired an income of about 30,000 a year, and several large estates (which are at that point viewed as expenses rather than sources of income). Previously, when they've had little income, they haven't worried about money much.