A lamprey is a form of eel-like fish. A surfeit of lampreys implies way too many eels wriggling unpredictably out of your grasp. Lampreys are also known as hagfish – the fish with no face but a mouth of concentric rings of teeth, known for attaching themselves to victims to devour their living flesh.¹ During the middle ages, lampreys were a delicacy in England, reserved for consumption by royalty, often in pies.

The family that dominates this story has the surname Lamprey and they do their best to wriggle out of Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn’s grasp, not for any sinister reason but just because they are all desperately trying to protect each other and hang together. They are an aristocratic family, as lampreys are an aristocratic dish, although the father has become the heir of his older brother only due to the death throughout the years of two older brothers. He’s kind of a Wodehousian character² and the children have been raised in such a way that employment seems unlikely, and they live off the generosity of others – their rich uncle would say, “sponging” by living off their charm.³

I start by describing this family because this book is really about them, and less about a murder investigation. They are seen, not only through Alleyn’s perception, but through the eyes of Roberta, a young kiwi who met them while they were living in New Zealand, and was swept up in their charm and sense of fun. After the Lampreys return to London, Roberta’s parents are killed in a car crash and she is sent to England to live with an elderly aunt who, luckily, suffers an attack of sciatica immediately before Roberta’s arrival, giving her an excuse to spend time with her great friends. She becomes immersed in their charm and peripatetic lifestyle – and yet, she’s always just a little apart, being from a family with a work-ethic and not, for example, having the Lamprey’s flair for the French language⁴ which they picked up en vacances in France or through French tutors.

This book takes place kind of as a bridge between books where Alleyn was somewhat annoying as a character and when he becomes much more charming. It still includes Nigel Bathgate – a newspaper reporter who, it seemed in the earliest books, Marsh was trying to establish as a sort of Watson, although that didn’t last long – and Alleyn is still making stiff pretentious speeches to groups of suspects.

Here’s an example:

“Before all this business starts, there is just one thing I’d like to say. It is not very much use my pretending to avoid the implications in this case. It is scarcely possible that it can be a case of suicide of accident. The word that must be in all your minds is one that, unfortunately, calls up all sorts of extravagant images. Detective fiction has made so much of homicide investigations that I’m afraid to most people they suggest official misunderstandings, dozens of innocent persons in jeopardy, red herrings by the barrow load, and surprise arrests. Actually, of course, the investigation in a case of homicide is a dull enough business and it is extremely seldom that any innocent person is in the smallest degree likely to suffer anything but the inconvenience of routine.”

Well, that’s a mouthful. And highly unrealistic. I just cannot imagine a police detective – even a donnish Scotland Yard detective, a younger brother whose elder brother, thank goodness, inherited the title.⁵

And yet, just a few pages later, Alleyn displays a wit and wisdom that you would never expect from someone who says something as silly as that speech above.⁶ The Lampreys are, as Roberta reflects, a young family. The father and mother are in their early 40s but with none of the maturity of her own parents; their six children range in age from 11-26. The parents, when faced with the murder, try to behave as they think grown-ups would. The two youngest children are rushed off to bed but the teenagers are determined to control the plot. When Alleyn discovers that the youngest child may have some important information, he is delighted to learn that the child is an 11-year old boy:

“Eleven? A splendid age. Do you know that in the police courts we regard small boys between the ages of ten and fifteen as ideal witnesses. They almost top the list.”⁷

“Really?” said Henry. “And what type of witness do the experts put at the bottom of the list?”

“Oh,” said Alleyn with his politely deprecating air, “young people, you know. Young people of both sexes between the ages of sixteen and twenty six… they are generally rather unobservant… Too much absorbed in themselves and their own reactions.”

And the interrogation of the eleven-year old is masterful: To avoid frightening the child, Alleyn manages to make the murder seem unreal, like a story out of the “lower form of newspapers” that the boy has managed to get ahold of, which report true crime stories. (The boy has read about Alleyn’s earlier cases and his transported by meeting his hero.) Michael has been daydreaming about growing up to be a detective⁸ and Alleyn manages to take his statement in the form of an informational interview. He ends by borrowing Michael’s own magnifying glass.

This is what makes Marsh one of the Grande Dames of Golden Age mysteries. That and the gruesomeness of the murder (Alleyn’s murders are always gruesomely fantastical), and the clever capture of the murderers. In this case, the denouement occurs, on a dark and stormy night, during a blackout, in a cavernous city mansion filled with gloomy Victorian furniture, containing only Roberta and Henry (the oldest Lamprey son), two strange servants, the corpse’s black-magic practicing widow, and a lone policeman who is put there in case something happens.

And something happens.

This is Marsh at her best – despite Alleyn’s silly speeches – humorous, creepy, clever, and charming. It’s still widely available on e- and in paperback.

1. You may remember an episode of The X-Files where there was some kind of humanoid hagfish infesting an old soviet sea vessel of some kind, stalking sailors through the latrines. ↩︎
2. At the onset of the mystery, he has decided to be terribly practical by going into business. He signs an agreement with a partner who knows about these things, only to have the partner go broke and commit suicide, leaving him with all the responsibility for their debts and a 10-year lease on a fancy office. ↩︎
3. Kind of like the Royals or the Kardashians. ↩︎
4. Which they use when speaking in front of a policeman who is sent to sit in with them while they are waiting to be interviewed, so that they cannot corroborate their statements. A brilliant example of the way the Lamprey’s brains work, not just because Roberta is also waiting to be interviewed with them and doesn’t speak French, but also because, as it turns out, the young policeman does speak French, fluently. ↩︎
5. Can you imagine Lenny Briscoe reeling that off to a suspect? ↩︎
6. And that’s not even his first speech of that sort in this book, having let off with a similar speech in response to a question from a pathologist whilst in the police car on his way to the scene of the crime. ↩︎
7. Ah, those were the days. ↩︎
8. In fact, he reappears in a later book in the series as a young copper who manages to keep his eyes and ears open with helpful results. The first Lamprey to get a real job, I suspect. ↩︎