Death Goes on Skis by Nancy Spain

my murder on skis theme continues with a campy and caustic tale of murder slope side

Le sigh, as any one of the deeply mannered characters in Death Goes on Skis would likely say. And I was doing so well with my little ski-themed project. Nancy Spain’s 1949 novel is billed as a “deliciously wild ride” on the back cover of the Virago Modern Classics reissue, but I found the ride more exhausting than exhilarating.

the virago cover

I have mixed feelings about this one. Some things made me roll my eyes so hard I could no longer see the text. At times I had to resist the temptation to throw the book across the room. (It’s a library book. Never let it be said The Butler doesn’t respect her local library. If it had been my book, though…) And yet. And yet, I found the mystery pretty engaging, even if I did want to throttle most of the suspects and a few of the detectives in the bargain. I was legitimately surprised by one of the reveals (the other was screamingly obvious) and although the characters were (intentionally) unpleasant, many of their (intentionally) bitchy interactions were entertaining.

Sandi Toksvig provides an informative and engaging introduction to the Virago edition, the TL;DR version is that Nancy Spain was a pioneering gay journalist/personality at a time when being out basically didn’t exist. She wrote over twenty books before her early death, at age forty-seven, in a plane crash.

Death Goes on Skis introduces the amateur crime solving duo of actress Miriam Birdseye and retired ballet dancer Natasha Nevkorina. Natasha is married to Johnny DuVivien, a nightclub impresario who played amateur detective in Spain’s three previous books. They, along with Johnny’s adult daughter Pamela, a ne’er do well playboy called Barny Flaherte, the extended Flaherté clan, Barny’s mistress and her husband, all arrive by train to a cozy ski hotel in the fictional country Schizo-Frenia, a joke that may have been funny in 1949, but I doubt it.

Personalities clash, everyone drinks a great deal of champagne and makes caustic jokes about each other until the bodies begin piling up. Then Johnny, Natasha and, to a lesser extent, Miriam, begin to investigate. Most characters don’t seem overly concerned with identifying the culprit, and neither does Spain, focusing more on the antics of the group and their increasingly intertwined personal lives.

Spain writes dialogue in a way that I cannot begin to describe, so I will just quote, unfortunately at length. Johnny, who is apparently Australian, says things like, “Now then, honey, chil’” and “Don’t tease, honey chil’…” and “What’s the matter with you-all honey.. Any’hing I c’n do?”

Toddy and Kathleen, the two Flaherté cousins, have the following exchange:

“Oh, do stop,” said Toddy. “Please stop, Kath…”

She strode over to Kathleen and put her arm round her.

“C’m on,” she said. “Blow your nose an’ tell me…” She extracted a large white silk handkerchief from her cuff and gently blew Kathleen’s nose. Kathleen gulped back her remaining tears.

“Well then. Jus’ because Regan’s fortune came out like that, doesn’t prove she committed suicide, does it?”

“Goo’ Lor’ no,” said Toddy. “Rather the reverse I expect, just like Freud. But it was sinister, wasn’t it?”

Goo’ Lor’ indeed. Spain apparently tired of this almost as quickly as I did; the second half of the novel features people speaking more or less regularly almost all of the time. Only Natasha, who may or may not be Russian, speaks poetically broken English with consistency. This, along with a more engaging storyline, makes the second half of the book easier going than the first half, which is focused more on the variously unhappy and unpleasant marriages between Barny, his wife Regan and Ted and his wife (Barny’s mistress) Fanny.

Barny’s charms are apparently so irresistible that almost every woman is enthralled by them, but we have to take their word for it: on the page, his rakish behavior plays so selfish and unpleasant it’s hard to imagine anyone even tolerating, much less falling for it. He becomes more palatable in the third act, when light is thrown onto at least some of Barny’s actions, making them more understandable, and he begins to face the consequences of his carelessness.

no one involved with this cover read the book

Minor spoilers (reveal of the murder victims) below.

More enjoyable were the minor characters, such as Miriam’s hangers-on Roger and Morris, two clearly coded gay men, one of whom is writing a hilariously awful musical version of Dracula, snippets of which we hear (I wanted more). Their banter and witty asides made me long for a Roger/Morris spinoff.

Roger dropped his mitten on the floor and growled among their legs savagely that he didn’t trust Barny one inch and still considered that he had murdered both his wife and Fanny Mayes. Barny did not hear him.

“Why should he do that, dear?” said Morris. Morris was the only member of the party who had dived down to help Roger pick up his glove. “In heaven’s name, why?”

“Well, because he likes it. And to get rid of them,” said Roger savagely.

“Don’t be silly, dear,” said Morris. And that was that.

Toddy, in spite of her Goo’ Lor’-ing, is another fascinating character, a woman who dresses like a man, gambles, and smokes cigarettes from a “frightening” holder. Spain clearly feels an affinity with these marginalized characters. They aren’t nice, or particularly good (no one is) but they are written with a degree of affection and honesty (even if they are pure camp) that feels radical for a novel written in 1949.

Spain, who wore “mannish” clothing like Toddy when appearing on television, lived with a woman (She magazine founder Joan Werner Laurie) and is rumored to have had an affair with Marlene Dietrich, was a singular character who lived a largely out life at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in the UK. As a mystery, I’m not sure Death Goes on Skis works. But as an example of a work written by a singular personality, it sings.

Further reading: Spain wrote several mysteries featuring some combination of DuVivier, Birdseye and Nevkorina, as well as three memoirs.