Money in the Morgue

Starting with just a title, three chapters, and a few notes left by Ngaio Marsh, one of Agatha Christie’s fellow “queens of crime,” Stella Duffy has crafted a fascinating Inspector Alleyn mystery. Set in an underfunded hospital in New Zealand during World War II, Money in the Morgue opens with the theft of the payroll from the matron’s safe and the disappearance of an elderly patient’s corpse. Alleyn, on assignment from Scotland Yard, is investigating the transmission of information to Japanese submarines, a follow-up communication apparently scheduled for sunrise the next day. This deadline lends tension to the story as Alleyn tries to keep events at the hospital from interfering with his search for the spy, only for a second missing body to confuse matters further. Throughout a long and wearying night, the outwardly calm but inwardly anxious Alleyn interviews and observes his motley cast of suspects — convalescing soldiers with a secret pastime, a priest, a doctor, two young nurses with a common love interest, and loud-mouthed Mr Glossop, the payroll clerk. By the time dawn arrives in New Zealand, the reader, having savored this clever and well-written tale, will surely be tempted to revisit some of the Marsh originals.