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Scales of Justice

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Scales of Justice

By: Ngaio Marsh
Narrated by: Philip Franks
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The lives of the inhabitants of Swevenings are disrupted only by a fierce competition to catch the Old Un, a monster trout known to dwell in a beautiful stream which winds past their homes.

Then one of their small community is found brutally murdered; beside him is the freshly killed trout. Both died by violence - but Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's murder investigation seems to be much more interested in the fish....

Scales of Justice was first published in 1955.

©1955 Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio Cosy Crime Thrillers Detective Fiction International Mystery & Crime Mystery Thriller & Suspense Traditional Detectives Thriller Crime Suspense
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Philip Franks is a good reader, but James Saxon, who read the entire Marsh canon in the good old Ninetees remains the absolute best!

Very good book by the absolute best writer!

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This is my second Ngaio Marsh book. An enjoyable listen. Philip Franks was an excellent Narrator. I will certainly seek out more by the author and the same narrator. Well worth a listen.

Enjoyable

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Murder takes place in a cosy village setting with a complex murder investigation where class distinctions and loyalties are themes running through the entire story. Excellent, clear narration and production, this audio book is another very enjoyable listen.

Another Enjoyable Alleyn Novel

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Philip Franks is definitely the best of the regular Marsh readers: captures the voices, conveys clearly the often complex plot details- and conveys the compassion with which Marsh painted her cast. The latter,as usual for Marsh, begin as a mostly unsympathetic superficial sketches, verging on caricature- but unobtrusively acquire depth and humanity. Plot carries you along, though the denouement is obvious a little ahead of itself- until that point, it is compelling.

Wonderful characterisation and narration

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I read both Dame Agatha and Dame Ngaio when l was younger. l loved birth writers for different reasons: Christie for the crisp sparseness of her writing and the magnificent puzzles she never ceased to produce, and Marsh for the beauty and wit of her use of language, and the almost equal ingenuity of her "whodunnitery". Christie ages better but listening to the magnificent narration of Philip Franks brought to life, in a manner l never contemplated, the unequalled eloquence of Ngaio Marsh's writing in this genre. Marsh was a writer who matches the greatest writers, not just female writers, of the 19th century, whose writing was in genres other than detective fiction which l find invariably and inexcusably boring. Not with the great Ngaio Marsh though. A superb whodunnit, immaculately written, wonderfully funny and inventive, incomparably read by a great actor with language that reminds you of the excesses of snobbery which is a commentary on how times have changed - largely - for the better. As with the Great Christie, there's only one Great Ngaio.

Wonderful writing, magnificent narration.

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