Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand mystery writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966.
Roderick Alleyn is a fictional character who first appeared in 1934. He is the policeman hero of the 32 detective novels of Ngaio Marsh. Marsh and her gentleman detective belong firmly in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, although the last Alleyn novel, Light Thickens, was published in 1982.
The gentleman detective, less commonly lady detective, is a type of fictional character. He has long been a staple of crime fiction, particularly in detective novels and short stories set in the United Kingdom in the Golden Age. The heroes of these adventures are typically both gentlemen by conduct and often also members of the British gentry. The literary heroes being in opposition to professional police force detectives from the working classes.
Death at the Bar is a crime novel by Ngaio Marsh, the ninth to feature her series detective Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. Published in 1940 by Collins (UK) and Little, Brown (USA), it was adapted for television in 1993 as part of the Inspector Alleyn Mysteries. The episode was directed by Michael Winterbottom and starred Patrick Malahide as Roderick Alleyn. The novel's title is a pun on the legal term the bar, and the public house as the plot concerns the murder of a leading KC during a game of darts in the bar of a pub in a small South Devon village. The novel is (unusually) dated on its final page 'May 3, 1939, New Zealand'; so despite its publication after the start of World War Two, the story is clearly set before the war, in Spring 1939.
Final Curtain is a 1947 crime novel by the New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh, the fourteenth in her series of mysteries featuring Scotland Yard detective Roderick Alleyn. It was published in Britain by Collins and in the USA by Little, Brown. Although set in a large English country house, immediately after the 2nd World War, it is effectively one of Ngaio Marsh's crime stories with a theatrical setting, given that it concerns Alleyn's wife Agatha Troy accepting a commission to paint a portrait of the great actor Sir Henry Ancred in the role of Macbeth, onstage at the theatre of his ancestral home, Ancreton Manor, to be unveiled at his 70th birthday party, amongst his family, most of whom are actively involved in the London theatre, one way or another. The novel was well received and reviewed.
The Nursing Home Murder (1935) is a work of detective fiction by New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh and Henry Jellett. It is the only book Marsh co-authored.
Death in Ecstasy is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh, the fourth to feature her series detective, Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. It was first published in 1936.
Artists in Crime is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the sixth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1938. The plot concerns the murder of an artists' model; Alleyn's love interest Agatha Troy is introduced.
Overture to Death is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the eighth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1939. The plot concerns a murder during an amateur theatrical performance in a Dorset village, which Alleyn and his colleague Fox are dispatched from Scotland Yard to investigate and duly solve.
Death and the Dancing Footman is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh, the eleventh of her Roderick Alleyn books and a classic example of the Country house mystery. Written in New Zealand, but set in a Dorset (England) country house, it was first published in 1941 (America) and 1942 (Britain), receiving rave reviews from The New York Times, and Britain's The Observer and The Tatler and hailed by the New Zealand Listener as "Miss Marsh's favourite among her own books".
Colour Scheme is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the twelfth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1943. The novel takes place in New Zealand during World War II; the plot involves suspected espionage activity at a hot springs resort on the coast of New Zealand's Northland region and a gruesome murder whose solution exposes the spy. Alleyn himself is working for military intelligence in their counterespionage division. Marsh's next novel Died in the Wool also concerns Alleyn's counterespionage work in New Zealand.
Swing, Brother, Swing is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the fifteenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1949. The plot concerns the murder of a big band accordionist in London; the novel was published as A Wreath for Rivera in the United States.
Scales of Justice is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh. it is the eighteenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1955. With a classic 'Golden Age' crime novel's setting, in the idyllic, self-contained, rural English community of Swevenings, the suspects are all members of a tight-knit social group revolving around the local baronet and his family. The plot concerns the brutal murder of Colonel Carterette, an enthusiastic fisherman, who is preparing for publication the deceased baronet's memoirs, which include the admission that, as a high-ranking diplomat before World War Two, the baronet had treasonably put class before country in what has been called the Herrenvolk heresy, and knowingly let a young member of the embassy staff take the blame. The young man in question, who idolised the Lacklander ambassador, had committed suicide and his eccentric father is now the murdered colonel's neighbour.
Off with His Head is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the nineteenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn. It was first published in the USA in 1956, under the title Death of a Fool, and in the UK in 1957.
Singing in the Shrouds is a detective novel by New Zealand writer Ngaio Marsh; it is the twentieth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1959. The plot concerns a serial killer who is on a voyage from London to South Africa.
When in Rome is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the twenty-sixth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1970. The novel takes place in Rome, and concerns a number of murders among a group of tourists visiting the city; much of the action takes place in the "Basilica di San Tommaso", which bears some resemblance to the Basilica of San Clemente, which the author visited 'when in Rome' on an Italian holiday in Summer 1968.
Black As He's Painted (1974) is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh, the 28th to feature Roderick Alleyn. The plot concerns the newly independent fictional African nation of Ng'ombwana, whose president and Alleyn went to school together, and a series of murders connected to its embassy in London. The novel was written in New Zealand in the late Spring and Summer of 1973, and a year later was on the Sunday Times best-seller list in the UK, as well as proving a best-seller in the USA. Marsh's first biographer Margaret Lewis quotes a letter Marsh wrote in March 1973: "I've gone into purdah with a new book. It's always a huge effort to get back into harness after an interval in the theatre and this time it's been uphill all the way... I've saddled myself this time with a complicated and hideously exacting mise-en-scene and am just crossing the halfway mark, full of black forebodings laced with pale streaks of hope." Dr Lewis quotes Marsh's editor at Collins, Robert Knittel, writing in September 1973: "I have just finished reading your latest novel and I think it is splendid. A real vintage Ngaio Marsh."
Grave Mistake is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the thirtieth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1978. The plot concerns the supposed suicide of a wealthy widow in a chic rest spa, and involves a rare, and famous, postage stamp. Set in and around the fictional village of Upper Quintern in England's Weald of Kent, it is the last of Marsh's "cosy" English village mysteries, and was followed by Photo Finish (1980), her final novel set in New Zealand, and Light Thickens (1982), her final novel with a theatrical setting. The book was well received and sold extremely well, as the author wrote in 1979 to a friend: "Grave Mistake seems to be beating all records in the U.S.A. It has sold 22,000 copies... & [is] still going strong".
Photo Finish (novel) is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the thirty-first, and penultimate, novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1980. Set in a millionaire's island mansion on a lake in New Zealand's South Island, it is the last of Ngaio Marsh's four New Zealand set novels - the others being Vintage Murder (1937), Colour Scheme (1943) and Died in the Wool (1945).
Light Thickens is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the thirty-second, and final, novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1982. The plot concerns the murder of the lead actor in a production of Macbeth in London, and the novel takes its title from a line in the play. A number of characters in the book appeared previously in Marsh's novel Death at the Dolphin. The novel is dedicated to the actors James Laurenson and Helen Thomas who had played Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, respectively, in the author's 1962 production of the play, which she had previously directed, also for The Canterbury University Players, in 1946.
