Overture to Murder (Roderick Alleyn #8), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2012, (Originally published in 1939).

Summary: A comedic play in a small village to raise funds for the church to buy a new piano turns into a murder mystery when the pianist is shot when playing the opening notes of the prelude by a gun concealed within.

An amateur comedic play in a local village to raise money for a new church piano for the church hall. What could go wrong? In the Village of Vale-of-Pen-Cuckoo, quite a bit. Even though the cast is small and consists of local talents, bringing them together is a combustible mixture that brings to a head simmering troubles in the village that results in murder. The production is directed by Dinah Copeland, the daughter of Rector Copeland. She is the one person with some professional stage experience. She’s also the serious love interest of Henry Jerningham, son of the village squire and constable, Jocelyn Jerningham. Jocelyn and his cousin Eleanor Prentice both oppose the marriage, albeit for different reasons. Jocelyn is a member of the species of impoverished landholders and Henry needs to marry into wealth, not a qualification of the Rector and his daughter. Eleanor, a religious spinster, came to live with her cousin after the death of Jocelyn’s wife as a kind of lady of the manor. Dinah, she fears, will supplant her.

This is not her only jealousy. When she moved to Pen Cuckoo, she developed a complicated friendship with another spinster, Idris Campanula. They loved to gossip about the rest of the village but saw each other as rivals for the affections of the rector who is trying his darnedest not to get entangled with either of them, who come to him with their “confessions” to spend time in spiritual intimacy with him

Meanwhile, the village newcomer, Selia Ross, is apparently having an affair with the handsome Dr. Templett, who has an invalid wife at home. Her suggested play is the one adopted, to the consternation of the two spinsters. Subsequently, Selia receives an anonymous and threatening letter, reeking of Idris Campanula’s favorite scent. She shares it with Dr. Templett. Meanwhile, Eleanor comes across Henry and Dinah in a passionate embrace on the day before the play and harsh words are spoken by all. Later that day Eleanor, coming for her confession with the rector, shows up at the very moment Idris throws herself in the rector’s unwilling arms. She was unseen and leaves, calling to make an excuse for cancelling.

Still, this cast manages to make it to the day of the play. Eleanor, chosen to play as overture to the play the “Venetian Overture” by Ethelbert Nevin, is found in pain in her dressing room from an infected finger. The doctor insists she must not play and Idris steps in triumphantly with her Prelude in C by Rachmaninoff. The two ladies had competed at gatherings with these pieces for years. This sounds like a comedic soap opera, right?

And then Idris Campanula plays the first three notes, stepping on the soft pedal with the third…and the piano seems to explode. When the smoke clears, Idris is slumped dead, a gunshot through the head, fired from inside the piano. They discover a gun, a Colt 32 belonging to Jocelyn, rigged with a “Twiddletoy” apparatus to fire when the soft peddle was depressed. The gun had been mentioned the previous evening at a cast gathering, was left loaded with a warning card in a box in the library, easily accessed from outside during the day. Anyone could have accessed it

But who was the intended victim, Idris or Eleanor? Idris substituted for Eleanor at the last minute, but as we see, there were people with motives to kill each woman. When a major theft ties up local investigators, Alleyn and his team are called in, along with his “Watson,” Nigel Bathgate to unravel this strange murder. Early on, they discover that the “Twiddletoy” belonged to the village prankster, Georgie Biggins, who had rigged up a water pistol. Somehow, another person had substituted the Colt for the water pistol. But when and how? Another woman had played the piano an hour before, using the soft pedal, with no lethal effect. And the stage was occupied in preparation for the play after that.

Alleyn must piece together the surviving cast’s movements and figure out the significance of a box at the church hall window with some fragments of rubber, and an onion found on the scene. Meanwhile, all the principals are withholding information, closed as only a secluded village can be.

It seemed to me that the character of Bathgate plays a much more minor role than in previous works. We also learn Alleyn is engaged to Troy, but apart from a love letter at the end, she’s absent, pursuing her own work. And Alleyn? He seems at his refined best, asking the hard questions with a velvet touch, not surprised by the transgressions common to adult human beings, and willing to keep quiet the things not essential to the case, all the while gathering and arranging the threads until the climatic scene where he calls the cast together one last time….

Last Ditch (Roderick Alleyn #29), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2016 (originally published in 1976).

Summary: Alleyn and Troy’s son Ricky finds himself in the middle of a murder of a young horsewoman and gets mixed up with a group of drug runners when all he wants to do is get away on a Channel island and write.

We met Rick, Alleyn and Troy’s son, once before in Spinsters in Jeopardy (#17). He’s now a twenty-one year old who fancies himself a writer and thinks a small town, Deep Cove, on a Channel island the ideal location to make progress on writing a book. Little does he realize he is about to find himself a witness after the fact to a murder, and caught up in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

He takes lodgings with Gilbert and Marie Ferrant. He is the local plumber who also goes on night time “fishing” outings, and takes trips over to France, decked out in fine dress. Marie takes in laundry and is a fine cook, having previously worked for the town’s elite family, the Pharamonds. Her son even shares the name of a Pharamond cousin, Louis, and we are left to wonder if there is more than coincidence…

Ricky is invited up to the Pharamonds to lunch and is instantly enchanted by Julia, wife of Jasper. The charm is broken by Dulcie Harkness, an equestrienne, the niece of Cuthbert Harkness who owns the local stable, The Leathers. They’ve been fighting, with her being accused of all sorts of immorality by her religious fanatic uncle. It turns out she is pregnant, and several men could be the father.

Then, that evening, Ricky goes to the local pub and meets up with Syd Jones, an artist and is invited up to his “pad.” He’s a drug user, the evening an uncomfortable one, but Ricky, wanting to get along, arranges an introduction to his artist mother. Subsequently, they have a dust up when Ricky steps on a tube of paint, sending Syd into a rage.

Ricky just wants to write, but can’t stay out of trouble. He goes riding with the Pharamonds, witnessing another fight between Dulcie and her uncle, who forbids her to follow the wanton example of the Pharamond boy of jumping a hedge on the stable property. The uncle orders Syd, who makes some extra working at the stables to take the best horse, a mare, to get shoed to make her unavailable and locks Dulcie in her room. When the party returns, Dulcie is found on the other side of the ditch, dead, having been crushed under the horse, and the horse injured, cut on the shanks by what looked like a wire. A coil of wire on the property shows signs of a length having been freshly cut, but no wire is found in the hedge. Ricky is one of those who witness the scene.

Alleyn and Fox, who have come to the island, are staying in Montjoy, the tourist village. They are investigating the possibility of drugs coming into the country from France through the island. The local police, represented by the stalwart Sergeant Plank, are glad for the help in investigating what appears to be a murder.

Meanwhile, Ricky gets in the middle of more trouble. He decides to take a break and visit the French town across the channel. He has an unpleasant encounter with Syd on the boat, being accused of following him. So he does, surreptiously, when they reach land. But not enough. He’s caught by Gil Ferrant peeping through a newspaper. Subsequently, we discover that Ferrant and Syd are working together. That afternoon, as a storm is rising, Ricky goes out to the dock to arrange his return and is pushed into the water, likely by one of them and is saved by a sailor on the boat, with a black eye and sodden clothes.

Recounting this to his father and Fox on return, they suspect Ferrant and Syd Jones of being part of a drug ring. But they don’t pull him out of the Ferrants and get him off the island. Meanwhile Alleyn and Fox are trying to figure out if the murder of the girl and the drug ring are in any way connected. Jones could have been one of the possible “fathers.”

Alleyn’s lapse in judgment and Ricky’s naivete set up a pretty exciting finish with Ricky in peril. All told, I have to admit to not finding Ricky particularly likable and it feels in ways that he has been indulged by parents who know better. Still, it all contributes to a pretty exciting finish. Along the way, Marsh paints scenes of the beauty of this Channel island with words, enabling one to visualize the setting, including a couple impressive storms.

I’m not sure this was one of Marsh’s best overall. The drug trade, no doubt, was a current concern of the time, and it allowed her to center a plot on something beside country parties and theatres. I wish the Ricky character was developed differently. While Julia Pharamond is a flirt, Ricky should have more sense than to think he has a chance with this older, rich, married woman. I do like how Alleyn consistently supports the local police like Sergeant Plank and help them shine–one of his best qualities. On the whole, a pleasant read, though not Marsh at her best.

Night at the Vulcan, (Roderick Alleyn #16), Ngaio Marsh. New York Felony & Mayhem, 2014, originally published in 1951.

Summary: An actor is found dead in the actor’s dressing room at the end of a play. It appears to be suicide by gas asphyxiation, but Alleyn finds clues pointing to murder by someone in the company.

Another Ngaio Marsh theatre mystery. She loved the theatre and set a number of murders there. For once, Alleyn was not in the audience and a witness to the death!

Martyn Tarne is an aspiring actress come to London from New Zealand. At least before she was robbed of most of her funds and repeatedly rejected for parts. Her last stop was The Vulcan, where she heard a new play was being staged. But the cast has been finalized. The play begins in a few days. But all is not lost. She overhears that the female lead, Helena Hamilton, has lost her dresser. She asks for the job, and is afforded a place to stay, first at the theatre, and then with Jacques Dore, the set and costume designer.

There are a number of fraught relationships within the company. Helena’s former husband, Clark Bennington is a fading, alcoholic actor, relying more on tricks and upstaging others than skill, particularly provoking character actor J.G. Darcey. Helena has had a long term affair with Adam Poole, her male lead and also the manager of the theatre. Gay Gainsford is Bennington’s niece who he has been able to get cast, even though she is a poor fit for her part. Meanwhile, the playwright, Dr. Rutherford hangs about the theatre, cruelly ridiculing the actors, especially Gainsford.

Martyn adds to the tensions by her resemblance to Adam Poole. As it turns out, she is a distant relation. In the play, Gainsford plays a part in which her resemblance to Poole features in the climactic scene between the two, a scene that she hasn’t mastered in looks or acting. Tarne is asked to read for the part as an understudy and it is plain to everyone that she should have been cast for it, including Bennington and Gainsford.

So many possible murder victims. So many possible suspects. The murder is made to appear to be a suicide by gas asphyxiation, which has happened once before when the theatre was named the Jupiter (featured in a Marsh short story). But Alleyn finds evidence to the contrary, not the least that the victim’s makeup had been refreshed for the curtain call and had previously boast of a letter from an Otto Brod being a “trump card.”

One of the unusual features of this is that Alleyn, after several hours, solves the murder on the spot. There is the culminating scene of the whole cast gathered as Alleyn walks through the evidence–and then dismisses everyone–but the murderer doesn’t leave.

This is well-executed. About half the story builds up to the murder, and about half involves the investigation. This is Marsh at her best in her favorite setting!

A Clutch of Constables (Roderick Alleyn #25), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2015 (originally published in 1968).

Summary: Troy takes a spur-of-the-moment river cruise only to learn that her berth had belonged to a man murdered by an international criminal, who happens to be on the cruise with her!

Ngaio Marsh used an unusual narrative device to unfold this mystery. Alleyn is giving a lecture on this case to a group of police in training in the United States. It concerns an international criminal, the Jampot, as he is known, a shadowy figure behind a number illicit international businesses, and his apprehension occurs at the end of a riverboat cruise on which Troy was a last-minute ticketed passenger.

Alleyn has just finished a one-person show while her husband is in the U.S. She is in the country where John Constable did a number of his paintings, she notices a river cruise boat, the M.V. Zodiac, that has a last-minute opening and decides to take it to enjoy the country where one of her favorite artists, John Constable, painted. Or so she thought. Not long after she settles in, she learns that her cabin had been booked by a man just found murdered, and that the murder bore the signs of having been done by the Jampot. It is not thought likely that there was any other connection with the cruise, but Troy is encouraged to visit the local police in the various towns, using the cover of a missing fur coat from her exhibition.

She begins to wonder when a casual exclamation, “Oh, look –The place is swarming with Constables! Everywhere you look. A perfect clutch of them!” elicits an unusual reaction among the passengers. She was referring to scenes painted by Constable. It’s obvious they thought she meant something else. Then there is the pair of motorcyclists who remain in the vicinity. Is the Jampot among the passengers afterall? It is an interesting mixture of people. There is Dr. Natouche, the reserved Ethiopian doctor and amateur mapmaker, the American brother and sister eager to find treasures at a bargain, the Hewsons, the one-eyed Reverend Lazenby, an Australian minister who doesn’t seem like a man of the cloth, the racist Mr. Pollock, and the lepidopterist, Kaley Bard, who tries persistently to hit on Troy.

There is one other passenger, the eccentric, heavy snoring Hazel Rickaby-Carrick, who attaches herself to Troy. Pleading a headache one night when Hazel seemed to desperately want to tell her something, she sleeps in her cabin. The passengers learn from a telegram that she was called away and has left. And she has. Only it is Troy, who on their return journey spots her in a weir, floating, and very dead. It turns out that she has been strangled in the same fashion as the accomplice of the Jampot.

At this point Alleyn makes an early return, and he and his team take up the investigation, while Troy is dispatched to a hotel, getting her off the scene. Given that this was suggested by a couple of the passengers, I feared someone would slip away and attempt to kill her. Indeed, despite a police guard, someone does slip away in the fog, and someone is murdered before the denouement, when the murderer is revealed amid a “clutch” of suspects.

The device of Chief Inspector Alleyn narrating the story after the fact worked for me–it set the story apart from others in the series, while not being obtrusive. Troy’s removal to the hotel did not–it removed her from the narrative after a touching reunion with Rory. Others have noted the element of racism in the story. I think this makes it true to life, while I think Marsh gives us subtle clues of her own disapproval without editorializing.  I loved the setting–it made a river cruise more inviting, with the chance to explore old English towns with shops and pubs–provide no murder was included. Then again, it is a great setting for a murder mystery weekend!

Black as He’s Painted (Roderick Alleyn #28), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2015 (originally published in 1974).

Summary: The President of Ng’ombwana is coming to England. A man with known enemies, his old school friend Alleyn attempts to persuade him to accept Special Branch protection but fails to prevent a murder at an embassy reception.

Retired Foreign Officer Sam Whipplestone thought the house on Capricorn Walk would make a pleasant place after his years of foreign service. Little did he realize that he would have one more assignment and that a tenant (Mr. Sheridan) and his house servant, Chubb would have a part. Nor did he realize that the bedraggled cat who adopted him, who he names Lucy Lockett, would uncover a key clue.

Meanwhile, Alleyn has drawn the unenviable assignment of trying to persuade “Boomer,” a former classmate now risen to the presidency of Ng’ombwana, to accept Special Branch protection while visiting London, and to refrain from unplanned excursions, adding to his risk. There had been attempts on his life and he had enemies. But he stubbornly believes in his invincibility. He reluctantly accepts some protection while relying on his ambassador in London to secure the embassy. He even arranges to have Troy paint his portrait, which she gladly accepts. He is a stunning subject.

All goes well until a gala reception at the embassy, at which Chubb hires on as wait staff. A shot is fired, lights go out, Alleyn, who is present as friend, shoves the president down. When the lights come back on they find the ambassador has been pierced through with the spear of the mlinzi, the president’s spear carrier. Chubb, nearby, had been knocked down and the mlinzi claimed to have been struck from behind, incapacitating him.

The embassy’s own investigation fails to turn up a murderer and the President is convinced that the murderer is not to be found among his people. That’s when the inhabitants of Capricorn Walk become of interest. A fish medallion brought to Sam Whipplestone by Lucy Lockett uncovers a group of conspirators on Capricorn Walk and in the Capricorn Mews, all with a grievance against the Boomer. Colonel Cockburn-Montfort had organized the Ng’ombwanan military, and then was dismissed. Chubb, a former commando, had suffered the rape and death of his daughter by a Ng’ombwanan. Sheridan, under the name of Gomez, was prosecuted by the Boomer for manslaughter and on being convicted vowed revenge. And the Sanskrits had been expelled from Ng’ombwana for corruptions of various sorts.

Alleyn must find the murderer from among these suspects before another attempt can be made. The question is whether the ambassador or the president was the target. The ambassador was standing after the fired shot, so it was possible that he was mistaken for the president in the confusion. All of this strains his friendship as he has to navigate the issues of race and respect for a nascent nation, former colony, asking the hard questions of a police officer while respecting the wishes of his friend, a former head of state.

I found this one of the more interesting of Marsh’s works. She chooses a very different setting–neither the theatre nor a country estate. Sam Whipplestone functions as a kind of “Watson,” while learning how different police work is from diplomacy. Marsh portrays the racism of the time, with characters using words not politically acceptable today. Also, a cat has a key role. And the Boomer is a complicated character, chiding Alleyn’s deference at some points, urging him to unbend, acting imperiously when national dignity is on the line, and with disregard for his own safety, accepting the risk of political office and indulging the notion of invulnerability. Even Alleyn reflects a deepening self-awareness of the path he has chosen, the calling he has answered, in contrast both with Whipplestone and the Boomer.

Death of a Fool (Roderick Alleyn #19), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2014 (originally published in 1957).

Summary: A fertility dance culminating in a ritual beheading of a fool, followed by his resurrection, ends with the fool having been truly decapitated.

It’s the winter solstice in South Mardian. Time for a ritual fertility dance known as the Mardian Morris Sword Dance. The dance is held among the ruins of Mardian Castle, in front of a home still inhabited by 94 year old Dame Alice Mardian, sharp as a tack, and her great niece and spinster, Dulcie Mardian. For generations, the core of the cast has been the Andersen family, who operated the Copse Forge, a blacksmithery in the nearby town, on a road soon to be turned into a thoroughfare. Presently, there is old William Andersen and his five sons. Andersen plays “The Fool” in the dance while the five enact a sword dance that culminates in a feigned beheading of the Fool, who conceals himself in a depression behind the Dolmen stone and subsequently rises from the dead at the conclusion of the ritual.

Three others are involved. Ralph Stanes, son of the rector and Dame Alice’s great nephew plays “the Betty,” a bisexual figure in a monstrous dress known to envelope young boys or girls. Crack, the Hobby Horse is played by Simon Begg, whose big role is to chase young maidens like Camilla Campion, the love interest of Ralph Stanes, into his arms. All of this is accompanied by the fiddling of Dr. Otterly, the town’s GP, who assiduously observes the players.

There is another key character, Mrs Bünz, a German immigrant who had fled Nazi oppression, and was taken up with researching folk rituals, of which the Mardian Morris Sword Dance is an outstanding example. She spies on rehearsals, tries to wheedle information from the players, and is resolutely resisted by William Anderson, until he is murdered.

As you might guess if you are a reader of Marsh, the staged murder actually occurs. When the Fool fails to rise at the climax, an investigation finds him decapitated, lying in the depression behind the rock. The local authorities, unused to dealing with such a horror, call in Scotland Yard and Alleyn, Fox, Bailey, and Thompson arrive forthwith.

The interviews of witnesses present a number of suspects. Anderson’s sons clearly are conspiring to conceal something. Ernest, the youngest and subject to epileptic fits and considered to “not be playing with a full deck” is the lead suspect. He wielded the “Whiffler” that beheads the Fool and he had an angry set to with his father over the putting down of a dog. He’d also beheaded an aggressive goose earlier in the day at Mardian Castle. And yet William Anderson was seen to crouch behind the Dolmen stone afterwards, very much alive. Chris, another son, wants to marry a village girl, Trixie, known to be “generous” with her favors, including with Ralph Stanes, and disapproved by William. Several of the boys, encouraged by Simon Beggs, a former officer barely surviving running a service station, wants to go in with the boys to turn the forge into a service station by the new thoroughfare. Ralph wants to marry Camilla Campion, William’s granddaughter. William is opposed because of Ralph’s previous dalliance and lets him known by asking Ralph to draw up a will with a bequest to Camilla if she doesn’t marry Ralph. And what is the real deal with Mrs. Bünz?

The big problem was that The Fool was very much alive after the pretend decapitation and very dead at the end of the play, yet the accounts of all the witnesses, including those who could see behind the stone, indicate no point at which he was attacked. So how did he die and who was his murderer? In the end, Alleyn resorts to a re-enactment to see if the murderer will be revealed.

Like many of her stories, there is “theatre,” which serves as the setting of a murder, but I thought her plotting was genius and found myself uncertain up to the end. The female characters, from crusty and imperious Dame Alice to the two young women, Camilla and Trixie, clearly upstage the men, as does the eccentric Mrs. Bünz. I also found it fascinating that Dr. Otterly seems to work more closely, and even conspiratorially, with Alleyn than the members of his investigative team, who remain in the background for the most part. All in all, I thought this, not among the very best, but certainly in the top ranks of Marsh’s Alleyn books. The use of a fertility dance in an English village was an unusual and fascinating plot choice.

Photo Finish (Roderick Alleyn #31), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2016 (originally published in 1980).

Summary: A New Zealand trip for Alleyn and Troy goes sideways when Isabella Sommita, a soprano and diva is murdered after she debuts a badly written opera composed by her latest love interest.

Troy has been invited to paint the portrait of famed soprano Isabella Sommita by her Aristotle Onassis-like friend, Montague Reece. It appears to have all the trappings of a romantic getaway for her and Alleyn. She has been invited to Reece’s Waihoe Lodge on a remote lake in New Zealand. Alleyn has been invited separately to “consult” on dealing with a particularly annoying member of the paparazzi, calling himself “Strix” who has managed to insinuate himself into a variety of situations where he has taken the most unflattering pictures of The Sommita. Alleyn is reluctant to go, given the penchant they have for getting mixed up in murder cases together. The deal is sealed however by his superior, who thinks he ought to go because of a vague international drug connection that The Sommita is rumored to have some association with.

The setting and the Lodge are as stunningly beautiful as Troy and Alleyn imagine. Marsh, a native New Zealander, describes the scene so vividly I could see it in my mind’s eye, and a storm section later in the book so palpably that I felt I was hearing the wind and rain pelt the Lodge. Reece has set up a well-appointed studio for Troy to use for the portrait and they are treated as guests of honor. But she will never make more than preliminary sketches.

Isabella Sommita, like many of the stage figures in Marsh’s books is full of herself, in this case the definition of diva. She is barely tolerated by her entourage, the maid Maria, her manager Ben Ruby, and the rest of the household staff including the very proper housekeeper Mrs. Bacon and the officious secretary of Mr. Reece, Ned Hanley. She has taken under her wing (and into her bed) Rupert Bartholomew, a young composer who has written a mediocre work just for her, The Alien Corn, with The Sommita playing the title role of the biblical role, complete with a climactic song that allows her to hit her famous high notes. They will debut the piece at the Waihoe Lodge with a cast of supporting singers, a music critic and Signor Beppo Lattienzo, with whom The Sommita had trained.

It’s thought that the remote location was safe from the increasingly hostile photographic intrusions of “Strix” but an incident during rehearsals, another photograph taken, suggests “Strix” is in their midst, yet he cannot be found. As the performance approaches, Rupert Bartholomew, who will conduct, begins to realize what a mess he is. He is awakening both to the poor quality of his composition and how he is in thrall to The Sommita. He tries to back out but neither Reece nor The Sommita will hear of it.

The guests arrive as a storm is setting in. The production comes off, with The Sommita giving her all to a very poor piece. As everyone is applauded, Bartholomew summons the courage to apologize for his shoddy work. The Sommita is infuriated and storms off to her bedroom while Rupert faints. When The Sommita doesn’t appear, Reece covers for her and asks Maria to take her a warm drink. A scream follows. The Sommita is lying spread-eagle on her bed–dead. A stiletto has been driven into her heart (post-mortem as it turns out) with a photograph taken earlier in the day pinned to her.

The storm has risen and most of the guests, save the performers and a few special guests have just gotten out in time. The rest are stuck there and the lake is so turbulent that the police cannot come. So Alleyn reluctantly takes charge and does his best to secure the crime scene and to collect evidence while it is fresh with the assistance of Dr Carmichael, even though he has no authority other than Mr. Reece’s permission.

Was it “Strix”? Or Rupert, who had a key to the bedroom as her lover? Or someone else in the household? And does a book Alleyn found in the Lodge library describing a vendetta between two New York crime families in which a young woman dies under similar circumstances have anything to do with the case? By the time the authorities arrive, Alleyn has figured out who “Strix” is and is ready, with Inspector Hazelmere to resolve the case.

I have to admit that having read a number of Marsh’s works, this felt a bit formulaic to me–a stage personality, a remote house party, a performance with the death of a lead, an extreme weather event leaving Alleyn in charge. Even so, the final denouement had some twists that caught me by surprise. And I have to admit that I have always enjoyed the New Zealand settings the best. This work was the next to last published in her life, two years before she died, showing her still quite competent in re-mixing the standard devices into an engaging story.