World War II rages on, and Inspector Alleyn continues as the Special Branch’s eyes and ears in New Zealand. While his primary brief is spy-catching, he’s also happy to help with old-fashioned policing. Flossie Rubrick, an influential Member of Parliament and the wife of a sheep farmer, is murdered. Had she made political enemies? Had a mysterious legacy prompted her death? Or could the shadowy world of international espionage have intruded on this quiet farm?

I listened to this as an audiobook in 2012, one of the few not narrated by James Saxon. I recently found a paper copy, slim enough to fit the handbag, so read again before letting it go.

This story was originally published in 1945,at the tail end of WWII.

On loan to New Zealand, investigating potential anti-war sympathies and trade secrets, Alleyn is called onto a sheep farm. The farm owner's wife - a local MP - died in suspicious circumstances 16 months before (she ended up in a wool bale). The couple are childless, and Flossie has spent her younger years collecting waifs and strays who still reside in the house - some of them people continue designing items for the war effort. It has been rumoured that some of those designs had been leaked (turns out to be true), which gives Alleyn the cover to go in and investigate.

The first third of the book has a lot of talking to set up the story and collect the deposition of those who remain on site who remember the incident. Lots of twists and turns, some suspects spotted earlier than others. Lots of talking in the first half, but that's one of the ways to get the info to the reader and a lot less dry than other routes.

Spread over a couple of days on a working farm in the middle of nowhere, Alleyn needs to find out not only who killed Flossie, but what he can about the stolen plans. Many of the group are hiding something from him, either to protect themselves or each other, even the dead.

It's always difficult to review books like this without giving away some of the plot so: sub 300 pages, with a large if rather restrained cast and the threat of WWII still hanging over people, and it's a decently plotted book, even if some of the events are sign posted a large distance away ( )

Re read after lending this to a colleague. After her comments I spent more time noticing the beauty of the descriptive writing. Marsh's love for the New Zealand landscape shines through and you can see the high plateau ringed with mountains and almost smell the clear upland air. The story and characters are engaging with a mix of murder and espionage in the later years of WWII. Delightful. ( )

While I liked the New Zealand setting, this entry in the Inspector Alleyn series was not one of Marsh's better efforts. ( )

I really liked this mystery set in New Zealand. Even though I knew the murderer very early on, the book was a pretty compelling read.

A bossy yet generous older woman, an MP in New Zealand, goes missing in the middle of WW 2. Three weeks later her body is found, stuffed in a bale of wool. Was it her personality that motivated the murder? Or was it connected to some form of wartime espionage?
Usually I dislike the addition of possible spying or the like in my mysteries. Here, however, Marsh blends that right into the mystery plot. Almost the entire book consists of conversations, with dome action coming at the very end, and the plot is neatly tied up.
Recommended for those who like vintage mysteries, or those who just want something a little different from a good writer. ( )

Summary: New Zealand member of Parliament Flossie Rubrick is found dead, concealed in a bale of wool from her farm, and Alleyn, working in counter-espionage during the war, comes to investigate because of secret research on the farm.

The setting is the highlands of New Zealand during World War 2. After having apparently departed for a session of Parliament, Flossie Rubrick has been missing for three weeks, until found in a bale of wool from Mount Moon, her farm. Roderick Alleyn, engaged in war service in counter-espionage, is sent fifteen months later to investigate because of some secret research being conducted by her husband’s nephew on the farm–a type of aerial magnetic anti-aircraft mine.

Flossie had been an influential force in Parliament. Her driving character did not make her easy to live with, whether it was her generosity to her niece Ursula and her husband’s nephew Fabian, the one doing research, with practical assistance from Flossie’s nephew, Douglas Grace. Flossie could be generous, but drove everyone in her circle hard, including her secretary Terence Lynne and her husband, Arthur, working together researching and formulating her policy proposals. Their work together fostered an attraction, discovered the first time it had found expression when Flossie intruded weeks before her death. She separated them and was cloyingly sweet to Arthur. Then there is Cliff Johns, son of the working manager of the farm. Cliff had become her protege when she discovered his musical talent, until the night before, when Markins, the manservant, discovered him apparently stealing some of her whiskey. Markins himself is not without suspicion, having been sent from a generous wool buyer, Kurata Kan, suspected of ties with the Japanese spy effort.

In other words, there is a whole cast of characters with a motive for murder, and perhaps a larger agenda, something that becomes evident when Fabian, mistaken for Alleyn, nearly suffers the same fate as Flossie. As in other cases, Alleyn interviews everyone, including the whole family circle together in an awkward discussion that reveals varying perceptions of Flossie. Small things–a lost diamond clip, a stub of a candle, smudges on the floor of the wool shed where the murder occurred and the whereabouts of each person when the murder occurred all are important.

In the end, Alleyn sets a trap, with himself as the bait, to catch a murderer and a spy. The trap works but who will be found in it and why?

This is one that builds up at a leisurely pace at first as Alleyn does his interviews–lots of conversation looking at Flossie Rubrick and her murder from every perspective. Then things accelerate and the book turns into a page-turner as we come to the final scenes. Even then, while Alleyn has his hunches, it is the murderer (and spy) who is responsible for the big reveal. All in all, a well-crafted story! ( )