Dysfunctional Relationships in Crime Shows: Marsh's Charismatic Victims

Robert Reynolds plays Rankin.

He shows up in Christie's Bertram's

Hotel as another lady killer

A number of victims in Ngaoi Marsh's novels are charismatic male attorneys/antique collectors/actors. They are often womanizers, being notoriously unfaithful. 

When they get killed, the "wronged" woman gets suspected, at least initially. 

Austen left this type of character alone. Sayers wrote them with a full understanding of their sexual allure. 

Marsh comes across as far less impressed. She isn't being vindictive when she kills them off. She seems largely indifferent--as if she wants to point out that not all women are susceptible to such dirty dogs. 

Generally speaking, Sayers was far more ready to take risks in her writing--to wear her heart on her sleeve. 

Despite the unimpressed tone, Marsh does a good job showing how such characters can attract and infuriate at the same time. In her first book, A Man Lay Dead, Charles Rankin is dallying with two ladies, his fiancee and a married woman. He also is baiting his host (at a country manor house party) with a rare antique. He plays the role of enigmatic withholder of information, not because he is enigmatic but because he can get away with it. People let him.

Think a louder version of Frank Churchill. 

Except in Marsh--the character pays a price for his game-playing.