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Died in the Wool

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Died in the Wool

By: Ngaio Marsh
Narrated by: James Saxon
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About this listen

Ngaio Marsh returns to her New Zealand roots to transplant the classic country house murder mystery to an upland sheep station on South Island - and produces one of her most exotic and intriguing novels.

One summer evening in 1942, Flossie Rubrick, MP, one of the most formidable women in New Zealand, goes to her husband’s wool shed to rehearse a patriotic speech - and disappears.

Three weeks later she turns up at an auction – packed inside one of her own bales of wool and very, very dead....

©1945 Original Text of 1945 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio Cosy Crime Thrillers Fiction Genre Fiction Military Mystery Suspense Thriller Thriller & Suspense Traditional Detectives War & Military Detective Crime

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Critic reviews

"The brilliant Ngaio Marsh ranks with Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers." ( Times Literary Supplement)
"In her ironic and witty hands the mystery novel can be civilized literature." ( New York Times)
"Ngaio Marsh is one of the detective novelists whose books I regularly re-read, always the test of a good detective story." (P. D. James)
"In the front rank of crime-story writers." ( The Times)
All stars
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enjoyed the story and the setting. characters are the usual marsh bunch but the setting provided a neat twist. the narration was patchy and even changed during the characters span making it difficult to follow in parts. dramatic but a little dated. however worth a go .

Australian spy thriller

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One of the stories during WW2 which sees Roderick Alleyn across the world and away from his usual team and his wife Troy.. He patiently unravels the tortuous strands of the details of the last days of Flossie Rubrick MP whose decomposing body is found in a bale of wool from her homestead. He also seeks out the traitorous agent who is betraying his Country and the Scientific Advance which may help Britain and her Empire defeat the Axis Powers.. Love triangles and adolescent stubbornness threaten to hinder the investigation until at last the culprit is exposed. An enjoyable yarn.

Alleyn in NZ

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One of Ngaio Marsh's strongest whodunits set in New Zealand on a sheep ranch. A truly gruesome account of the hiding of the victim's body and a fantastic evocation of NZ in the forties.

James Saxon is the perfect narrator for the series.

Dipping into a mystery from the Golden Age

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Found this a fascinating listen - I appreciate the way Ngaio Marsh plays around with the conventions of the detective novel, with this starting out as a series of psychodramatic confessions from the central characters & then developing into gripping showdown - I stayed awake listening to the final two hours. I particularly loved the evocation of the NZ 'high country'& the thoughtful portrayal of character - brought impressively to life by James Saxon's narration - his NZ accents impeccable & the rendition of the taciturn Ben Wilson is a particular tour de force.

Slow burner; worth sticking with

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Not my favourite Ngaio Marsh. I found it hard to distinguish between the voices of the male characters as spoken in a thick New Zealand accent. The first couple of hours or more felt like a play since no action but non-stop talk as the characters gave their impression of the character of the deceased. I also found it very hard to imagine the layout of the wool shed as it was alien to me and the description didn't help. I had suspected the identity of the murderer from the start but even if it had been someone else, I would not have cared. The narrator did a very good job considering the characters were wooden, unconvincing and unlikeable - even Alleyn - and the plot unbelievable and tedious.

Hard-going, weak plot

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This book was okay. I found the characters incredibly grating but the story was okay. Not my favourite & I won’t listen to it again. Really loved the narrator though...thought he was excellent & got me through the book.

Not the best

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What did you like best about Died in the Wool? What did you like least?

The story is classic Ngaio Marsh, but I find the narration highly irritating. I assume this is a very old recording that Audible has reused. I think this Ngaio Marsh series needs an update. I love her books, but find these performances excruciating to listen to.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Every female character sounds like a parody pantomime dame and most of the men sound like Kenneth Williams doing high camp. It's a pity because I found James Saxon a very watchable actor on TV, but he seems to have been directed to make these narrations as "thespy" as possible and it is too cringeworthy to listen to and enjoy.

Any additional comments?

Please update the Ngaio Marsh books with a different narrator.

Ruined by the narration

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