Well, this one was an education. I love Marsh and the way she illuminates traditions and groups that I've never thought about. Mummers and mumming and Morris dancing are central to this tale. (And yes, I had to Google several terms whilst reading.)

Okay; interesting tidbits about British folklore.

Death of a Fool takes place around the winter solstice. In South Mardian, a sword dance/fertility ritual/mummer play is performed every year, but this time, the fool (the father) is actually beheaded. I don't know anything about English folk dances, but the dance featured in Death of a Fool is interesting. Granted, it's a fictional dance, but the author tells us that she did use elements from a variety of traditional dances. Reading about the rehearsals, the performance, the costume and the history was fun. The dance is performed by the elderly blacksmiths, his five sons and a couple of other village men. They are also the most obvious suspects, especially the sons as they were the ones with the sword during the dance. Of course, the other performers have motives too. There are so many reasons to kill the old man: anger revenge, money, and just to get him out of the way.

Alleyn is called in to investigate. In a small town, everybody knows everybody's secrets, but no one wants to tell the cops. The clues are well-done, they make sense, even if I didn't catch them all. I liked all the characters, too, especially Dame Alice Mardian, the ninety-plus year old village matriarch. She's smart and funny and clearly is enjoying being up close to the investigation. There's also a young couple in love, as is often the case in Marsh's mysteries. The romance is always in the background, but does provide some motive.

So far, this has been the hardest of the Alleyn books to get through for me. It's set around a winter solstice dance that has been carried out for centuries and passed down through generations of families in a sort of mix of folk superstition and tradition. I found it a heavy slog; and that's before the classism, xenophobia, and ableism (or whatever you'd call its inaccurate portrayal of epilepsy) that lard it throughout. Alleyn makes quick work of the mystery, and so does the reader (it's always pretty easy when there's only one dislikable character...)

Still small bits of interesting character work, amidst the stereotypes. It's not quite a 1* book. But if it'd been the first book I read in the series I doubt I would have continued.

Nineteenth in the Inspector Roderick Alleyn detective vintage mystery series and revolving around a group of five Morris dancers in a village in Kent. It was originally published in 1957.

Death of a Fool is also titled Off With His Head.

My Take
The main premise in Death of a Fool is the Morris dancing, and Marsh explains its different dances and the theme behind each. Marsh also makes use of dialect, which gives color to the Andersons. Lucky for us Marsh uses third person global subjective point-of-view allowing us an inside look on the thoughts and feelings of a number of characters.

It's amazing that people have stayed in place for so many centuries. Look at Otterly and his family for years back being doctors and playing the fiddle.

I really don't get why everyone says the ambitious Ernie is loony just because he has epilepsy. Okay, well, he is rather loony and gets quite emotional. But is it possible that he became loony because that's how people interpreted his epilepsy?

The Andersons are true to their time period— misogynistic and so anti-Roman Catholic that they preferred to banish Bessie than accept her falling in love — and marrying! — an RC. I do like that Camilla sticks up for her parents and herself, pointing out that it was the Andersens who were too snooty. It's rather scary that Marsh wrote this in the mid-1950s and this attitude was still in existence. Wait, why am I surprised? This attitude about religion was prevalent in my own family in the 1960s!

They're rather unfeeling as well, threatening to kill Ernie's dog. That Guiser is a cold, unfeeling man. Dame Alice is nutty with a bad memory and a firm belief in class separation. Dulcie is not all there either, and it could be due to inbreeding or that kick in the head from a horse twenty years ago. Thinking she's flirting with Alleyn, you can definitely tell she's off.

Otterly thinks the Morris dance theme is the same as that of King Lear. Mrs Bünz thinks all's fair in taking notes on the Morris dancers, even if she does have to spy on them. She does make the point that the Mardian dancers are the richest example in England.

Everything in Death of a Fool revolves around the Morris dancers with additional conflicts including the Andersons' anger at their Bessie, unsure about their granddaughter/niece Camilla, Camilla's own questions about marrying Ralph, and the argument between the Old Guiser and his sons who want to add on a garage and petrol pumps to the smithy.

Lol, I had to laugh at the rector noting that the funds raised from this pagan dance were going to the belfry roof.

I really don't understand Camilla's reluctance to marry Ralph. And she makes me nuts with her back-and-forth. Another weird bit is Otterly's reaction to the McNaughton Rules. I should have thought he'd be pro the Rules?? Ya gotta love Trixie, Thompson is certainly interested, lol.

Per usual, Alleyn begins to explain his thoughts on how the crime happened, but then Marsh leaps to finish his explanation without giving us his thoughts. On the other end of the policeman's duty is Sergeant Obby charged with watching over the Andersen brothers who keep trying to get Obby to leave them alone. Another interesting bit of police-fear is Mrs Bünz with the fears she brought along from Nazi Germany.

Aww, there's a sweet bit of back history relating a bit about Camilla's father and how he met Bess Andersen.

Death of a Fool is primarily character-driven with some fantastical action and those historical notes about Morris dancing. The pace was reasonable with bits of humor and honesty. The ending was a shocker. All that dancing around the obvious suspects . . .

That's our Alleyn, impressing people everywhere. And running into local coppers who don't follow the "rules". You'll laugh at those dinners Dame Alice puts on . . . at least the wine is superb.

The Story
At the winter solstice, South Mardian's swordsmen weave their blades in an ancient ritual dance. But for one of them, the excitement proves too heady, and his decapitation turns the fertility rite into a pageant of death. Now Inspector Roderick Alleyn must penetrate not only the mysteries of folklore, but the secrets and sins of an eccentric group who include a surly blacksmith, a domineering dowager, and a not-so-simple village idiot.

The Characters
Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn is in CID at Scotland Yard. His team includes Inspector Fox, a.k.a. Brer Fox; Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, fingerprints and photography, respectively; and, Curtis is the police surgeon. The local superintendent is Yeo Carey stationed in Yowford. His men include Sergeant Bob Obby, PC Carey, and Sergeant Yardley.

Anna Bünz is a German immigrant, who is fascinated by British folklore, especially of Morris dancers / Hobby Horses, and she's vice-president of the Friends of British Folklore, Guild of Ancient Customs, The Hobby Horses.

Mardian Castle is . . .
. . . mostly a ruin with the renovated bit lived in by Dame Alice Mardian, a.k.a. Aunt Akky, and her great-niece, Dulcie. The thirty-year-old Ralph Stayne, a lawyer in Biddlefast with Messrs Stayne and Stayne, is Dame Alice's great-great nephew and the local parson's son. Sam Stayne is the local rector who had fallen in love with Dulcie's older sister — despised by Dame Alice because he isn't interested in riding to hounds. JNO McGlashan is the aging gardener. The elderly parlormaid gossips with Trixie. Ambrose Hilary Mardian wrote a journal in 1798.

William Anderson, a.k.a. Old Guiser, at the Copse Smithy/Forge, is the blacksmith. He's also a tyrant, a snob, and a hypocrite. His sons include Daniel, the oldest; Chris has a mechanic's ticket and had been a commando in the war; Andy and Nat, the twins, are farmers; and, the loony, epileptic Ernest who treasures his dog, Keeper. They're all Chapel. Bill is Daniel's son. Or he could be Andrew's youngest. Marsh isn't sure.

The Green Man is a local pub in South Mardian where the easy-going Trixie Plowman serves. Her father, Tom Plowman, owns the pub. A fellow guest is the eighteen-year-old Camilla Campion, a drama student in love with Ralph. She's also the Old Guiser's granddaughter, estranged due to her mother's, Bessie's, marriage to a, gasp, Roman Catholic and a baronet, Sir Camillo Campion, who's an authority on Italian primitives.

Wing Commander Simon Begg, a.k.a. Simmy-Dick, was a bomber pilot and hero in the war, and now he runs a service station in Yowford. He asked for Ernie as his batman, a corporal, during the war. Begg's father used to run the grocer's in the village, Beggs for Everything. Dr Henry Otterly delivered Camilla's mama. Mary Yeoville is in labor.

The Mardian Mawris Dance of the Five Sons
A male-only group, they perform at the Winter Solstice party, a.k.a. Sword Wednesday. The Old Guiser, "The Disguised One", is the Fool/Old Man. Ralph is the Betty, a hermaphrodite. Ernie is the Whiffler. Begg is Crack, the Old 'Oss, the Hobby Horse. He "inherited the role from another Begg who was killed in the raids. Otterly has played fiddle for thirty years. The organist is the village postman.

Loony, Lord Rekkage, now deceased, founded the Build of Ancient Customs. Old Moley Moon is a poacher.

Three hundred years ago, Betsey Andersen was burned for a witch — and that's the first capital crime in the area. The McNaughton Rules are about a person who is insane at the time of the crime being not guilty with a discretionary sentence. Old Yeo Anderson at Copse Forge had been a morris dancer in 1798.

The Cover and Title
The cover is primarily lime green. It's a darker lime that gradates to lime in the lower center of the upper half. The title is a deep lime green gradating up to white. The stretched out banner is a pale green with the author's name in its usual art deco font and filled in with solid black, black lines, and a glow of white around the whole. In the bottom half, the usual one-sided scalloped rays spread out in an angle from the bottom to the sides. The scallops are in white with the ground between each of the four lines gradating from the deep lime green to bright lime. The bottom center graphic has a gradated background of deep red to a dull red. The engraved silver hilt of a sword is prominent with the blade sliding off at the bottom. I'm guessing they chose this highly decorated hilt because it's not as "sexy" as the wooden handle of the slasher. There's a banner that arches across the bottom with the series info in a deep lime green.

The title is accurate, if metaphorical, hmmm . . . maybe not . . . of the Death of a Fool.

I read this as "Off With His Head". Thought it was quite fab really.