Book Review: When in Rome by Ngaio Marsh
When in Rome by Ngaio Marsh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Two years and six days later, after at least 2 restarts, I’ve finished.
It isn’t that I didn’t want to read it, or that I wasn’t enjoying it, rather it wasn’t a priority and I wasn’t entirely engaged. It would fall down below other books and then I’d realize it had been months since I read any of it. Even this final re-start which began on June 30, or thereabout, took a while to get going and I read the final two chapters this afternoon.
To some extent, the jargon is dated and some of the implied conversations that made sense in context in the 1970s did so less sense today. This made reading it more effort than I generally put to a mystery. I had to carefully read each word and do some deciphering to carry on with the story and the plot. But then, I read most of the end in a sitting because I had to know. It took a while for the plot to develop to that state.
This is an improbable cast of characters thrown together on a tour of Rome. Why they registered for this tour is a question that matters to the outcome of the plot. Some have motive – some have none – for a crime against a fellow.
Perhaps not the best entree into reading Marsh, but the one I had at hand. I wouldn’t discount another if it fell into my lap.