Nigel Bathgate finds himself bored one rainy Sunday night and crosses his street to the House of the Sacred Flame, a strange cult that has recently moved in near him in Ngaio Marsh’s Death in Ecstasy. Talking his way past the locked doors, Nigel gets introduced to a hypnotic preacher, Father Garnet, who is full of talk of ecstasy, only stirring at the end in time to watch the passing of the sacred vessel among the initiates. Then, it gets handed to the newest initiate, Cara Quayne, who drinks and enters ecstasy, according to Father Garnet, but in reality she dies. Nigel stops the religious leader from dispersing the congregation and insists on calling Chief Detective Inspector Roddick Alleyn, who brings his team to investigate the murder.
The inquiry takes them deeply into the world of this cult, which uses drugs to take its initiates more deeply into ecstasy, starting with “special cigarettes” and moving onto heroin. It also becomes clear that Father Garnet has been involved sexually with the women, leading to much infighting over his favors. But beyond this is the issue of greed over money. Cara is a very wealthy woman known to have given £5,000 in bearer bonds to the House of the Sacred Flame, for the church to use when it has raised a matching sum. In addition, just a month earlier she changed her will to benefit both the church and Father Garnet. So which motive inspired someone to murder Cara Quayne?
This book is very possibly my least favorite Ngaio Marsh book. I don’t like the topic of a cult and how dark the topic generally gets. Published in 1936, the book has some really interesting details of the period. For example, many of the flats contain only a minimal kitchenette and get their meals from a kitchen that serves the building. The “special cigarettes” contain heroin and not marijuana, as I had assumed.
The characters in this book do not come across as developed as most other books by Marsh. Marsh is well known for drawing her characters really in-depth and basing her mysteries on a knowledge of the characters. However, this book does not show these as round as they come across in later books. It gives Nigel Bathgate a starring role that does not made sense. For a police officer to use a newspaper man as his assistant does not make any sense. And Bathgate can be an annoying character. I did find the two acolytes, Lionel and Claude, to fit a strong stereotype of gay young men. These two young men swoon over Alleyn and talk with a lisp that fits into the stereotypical image of gay men. Actually, most of the characters fit a stereotype and don’t have the depth to them that the other characters in other books contain.
James Saxon has finally come into his own as narrator of about half the books by Marsh. He speaks with confidence and seems to suit Alleyn very well as he voices the roles of the characters.
I didn’t really like Death in Ecstasy, but I don’t generally like books that deal with cults because they, exemplified by this book, are too dark and creepy. The book is full of the sense of evil, in the midst of drugs, a hypnotic leader who uses his position to sleep with the women in his congregation, and potential financial fraud. I give this book two stars.
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