Some things should be allowed to fade into obscurity, and the underwhelming Vintage Murder is one of them. Like Enter a Murderer, it is primarily a theater mystery. However, it opens in a shared train car as Alleyn is on vacation in New Zealand. While I had hopes of an Orient Express style story, the real mystery doesn't take place until their first production in Middleton, a fictitious town.

There's a great deal of dialogue, the majority of which takes place at the scene of the crime. Sadly, almost none of it contains the humor and playfulness I had come to associate with Alleyn, although there is one hilarious scene with a somewhat odd stagehand Shakespeare-obsessed stagehand at the end, strongly reminding me of Micheal Keaton's performance in Much Ado About Nothing.

One of the oddest moments is an afternoon car ride and picnic interlude with a suspect during the questioning phase of the story, particularly because Alleyn has the permission of the New Zealand police to question the person in a more 'informal' setting. I realize, of course, that some of police procedural questions are time period issues, but I don't think Poirot would have taken a suspect out on a picnic. It does, however, allow Marsh an opportunity to wax lyrical about the scenery.

There's also a sideline in here with a Maori doctor, and Alleyn noting (and disapproving) a racist reaction among some of the theater people, as well as the New Zealand police. I suspect Marsh was chiding her fellow countrymen for their less thoughtful approach to the Maori culture.

On the whole, it feels like Marsh (or her editor) wanted her to do a more Christie-style book that is both serious and literary, or perhaps Marsh wanting to do her home country justice. Ultimately, it lacked the plotting and the sparkle to keep me entertained. ( )

She had written a very similar plot earlier in the series. Still some very good lines though. ( )

Number 5 in the Alleyn series, and it's pre-Troy. Alleyn takes a long holiday to New Zealand, falls in with a touring acting company and gets pulled into investigating the murder of one of the Company's owners.

The book sets up characters that are repeated in later books (e.g. the Noble Aboriginal Doctor). As usual the investigations take part over the following 48 hours after the death of the main character and there is a lot of interviewing of the secondary characters, including the dead man's wife, the man who was in love with her, the drunken ex-actor/door manager etc.

Marsh split her time between England and New Zealand, and her love of the latter country is evident, especially at the end - the New Zealand tourist board should dig out these books again and make sure they're prize of place! ( )

Summary: Alleyn falls in with a theatre company while in New Zealand and discovers that neither murder nor police work take a vacation.

New Zealand. Trains. Theatres. Murders in Alleyn’s presence. It would be an interesting trivia question for Alleyn lovers of how many novels in this series have one or more of these elements as a significant plot element. This story has them ALL.

Alleyn is on holiday, riding across New Zealand on a train. The other people in his car are the assorted cast members and others associated with the Carolyn Dacres Comedy Company, a touring company. He surveys the company, many of whom are sleeping but a few are awake including a seatmate, leading many Hailey Hambledon and a restless young actor, Courtney Broadhead, who gambles more than is good for him. Alleyn dozes, awakened with the awareness that someone had walked past him. Shortly after, he is sought out by Hambledon, who informs him that someone had tried to kill Alfred Meyer by pushing him off a platform between cars. He listens to the story, advises contact with the authorities, which Meyer, the proprietor of the company, is reluctant to pursue. Then word of another crime intrudes as Valerie Gaynes, a novice actress taken on as a favor reports that a large sum of money in a folder in her luggage had been stolen. Alleyn looks, while asking everyone to keep his true identity secret.

They arrive at their destination in Middleton without further excitement. We meet the various characters and overhear a conversation between Hambledon and Carolyn suggesting some sort of romantic involvement, but one she will not pursue as a Catholic who does not believe in divorce. Only if Alfred is dead would anything be possible. Broadhead settles up gambling debts while Liversidge, the other “juvenile” seems flush with funds. Ackroyd practices his acerbic wit on all and sundry. George Mason, the business manager and Meyer’s partner, seems absorbed with matters in the office. All the preparations for the show are supplemented by an after-show dinner in honor of Carolyn Dacres birthday planned by Alfred Meyer, her husband, which includes a jeroboam of champagne being lowered to the table, counterweighted with a heavy weight, which plummets to the stage at one point as the apparatus is being set up.

You see where all this is going, don’t you? Alleyn has been provided a seat at the performance, and invited to dinner. He buys a gift of a tiki, a symbol of good fortune on the advice of Maori Dr. Te Pokiha, also with the party. It is passed around for all to look at before the surprise of the night, the champagne jeroboam. When Carolyn cuts the cord holding it, the jeroboam plummets, breaking upon the head of Alfred Meyer, killing him.

Alleyn discovers the counterweight had been removed. This was no accident. But who in this tight knit cast would have done it? Could it be connected with the events on the train. Did Meyer know who stole the money. What about Hambledon who had reason to wish Meyer dead. Or perhaps Carolyn herself? The other with a financial stake was Mason, the business partner, but he was not seen leaving his office during the crucial time. Or could it have been the somewhat mysterious Maori, Dr. Te Pokiha?

Alleyn is invited to join the investigation by local authorities, enthralled by a professional text written by Alleyn and the chance to watch him up close. So goes vacation and anonymity! The investigation involves the movements of all the cast members, the layout of the theatre, what became of the tiki, and why a weight, not heavy enough for the counterbalance, was affixed to the rope after Alleyn investigated. What, if any, connection did the events on the train have to Meyer’s murder?

Marsh handles all the classic elements with style, throwing in red herrings to divert us. We wonder if Alleyn will be able to solve this in time for the troop to leave for its next performance–and what will happen with the leading lady’s husband gone? And will Alleyn get his vacation in, or merely a busman’s holiday? While not terribly imaginative, and a bit drawn out in its investigation of various cast members, I still found the denouement satisfying as well as how Marsh got there. ( )

Good cozy mystery. From the title I expected it to have more to do with wine. Instead it is about a surprise gone wrong with a theatre company. Very entertaining! ( )