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Ngaio Marsh

This page lists books by Ngaio Marsh.

Most of the novels listed on this page have been published many times. The cover images shown are, where possible, the first UK edition and the cover of the HarperCollins paperback reissues of the early 2000s.



This page is divided into four sections.

By Ngaio Marsh:
- novels / short stories
- collected editions
- autobiography / non-fiction

About Ngaio Marsh:
- biography / critical

 

Ngaio Marsh: Novels and short story collections

A Man Lay Dead

Ngaio Marsh

Geoffrey Bles

1934

"Sir Hubert Handesley's extravagant weekend house-parties are deservedly famous for his exciting Murder Game. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse with a real dagger in the back. All seven suspects have skilful alibis - so Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn has to figure out the whodunit."
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Enter a Murderer

Ngaio Marsh

Geoffrey Bles

1935

"The crime scene was the stage of the Unicorn Theatre, when a prop gun fired a very real bullet; the victim was an actor clawing his way to stardom using bribery instead of talent; and the suspects included two unwilling girlfriends and several relieved blackmail victims. The stage is set for one of Roderick Alleyn's most baffling cases."
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The Nursing Home Murder

Ngaio Marsh & H. Jellett

Geoffrey Bles

1935

"A Harley Street surgeon and his attractive nurse are almost too nervous to operate. Their patient is the Home Secretary - and they both have very good personal reasons to want him dead. The operation is a complete success - but he dies within hours, and Inspector Alleyn must find out why."
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Death in Ecstasy

Ngaio Marsh

Geoffrey Bles

1936

"Who slipped cyanide into the ceremonial wine of ecstasy at the House of the Sacred Flame? The other initiates and the High Priest claim to be above earthy passions. But Roderick Alleyn discovers that the victim had provoked lust and jealousy, and he suspects that more evil still lurks behind the Sign of the Sacred Flame."
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Vintage Murder

Ngaio Marsh

Geoffrey Bles

1937

"New Zealand theatrical manager Alfred Meyer is planning a surprise for his wife's birthday - a jeroboam of champagne descending gently onto the stage after the performance. But, as Roderick Alleyn witnesses, something goes horribly wrong. Is the death the product of Maori superstitions - or something more down to earth?"
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Artists in Crime

Ngaio Marsh

Geoffrey Bles

1938

"It starts as an art exercise - the knife under the drape, the pose outlined in chalk. But when Agatha Troy returns to her class, the scene has been re-enacted: the model is dead, fixed in the most dramatic pose Troy has ever seen. It's a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. Is the woman he loves really a murderess?"
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Death in a White Tie

Ngaio Marsh

Geoffrey Bles

1938

"The Season has begun. Débutantes and chaperones are planning their gala dinners - and the blackmailer is planning strategies to stalk his next victim. But Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn knows that something is up and has already planted his friend Lord Robert Gospell at the dinner, But someone else has got there first."
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Overture to Death

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1939

"It was planned as an act of charity: a new piano for the parish hall, and an amusing evening's entertainment to finance the gift. But all is doomed when Miss Campanula sits down to play. A chord is struck, a shot rings out, and Miss Campanula is dead. It seems to be a case of sinister infatuation for Roderick Alleyn."
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Death at the Bar

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1940

"A midsummer evening - darts night at the Plume of Feathers, a traditional Devonshire public house. A distinguished painter, a celebrated actor, a woman graduate, a plump lady from County Clare and a local farmer all play their parts in a fatal experiment which calls for the investigative expertise of Inspector Alleyn."
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Surfeit of Lampreys

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1941

Originally published in the US as Death Of A Peer.

"The Lampreys were a peculiar family. They entertained their guests with charades - like rich Uncle Gabriel, who was always such a bore. The Lampreys thought if they jollied him up he would bail them out of poverty again. But Uncle Gabriel meets a violent end, and Chief Inspector Alleyn has to work out which of them killed him."
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Death and the Dancing Footman

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1942

"It begins as an entertainment: eight people, many of them adversaries, gathered for a winter weekend by a host with a love for theatre. It ends in snowbound disaster. Everyone has an alibi - and a motive as well. But Roderick Alleyn soon realizes that it all hangs on Thomas, the dancing footman."
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Colour Scheme

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1943

"It was a horrible death - lured into a pool of boiling mud and left to die. Roderick Alleyn, far from home on a wartime quest for enemy agents, knows that any number of people could have killed him: the English exiles he'd hated, the New Zealanders he'd despised, or the Maoris he'd insulted. Even the spies he'd thwarted."
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Died in the Wool

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1945

"One summer evening in 1942 Flossie Rubrick, MP, one of the most formidable women in New Zealand, goes to her husband's wool shed to rehearse a patriotic speech - and disappears. Three weeks later she turns up at an auction - packed inside one of her own bales of wool and very, very dead."
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Final Curtain

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1947

"Just as Agatha Troy, the world famous painter, completes her portrait of Sir Henry Ancred, the Grand Old Man of the stage, the old actor dies. The dramatic circumstances of his death are such that Scotland Yard is called in - in the person of Troy's long-absent husband, Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn."
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Swing Brother Swing

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1949

Originally published in the US as A wreath For Rivera.

"The music rises to a climax: Lord Pastern aims his revolver and fires. The figure in the spotlight falls - and the coup-de-théatre has become murder ... Has the eccentric peer let hatred of his future son-in-law go too far? Or will a tangle of jealousies and blackmail reveal to Inspector Alleyn an altogether different murderer?"
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Opening Night

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1951

Originally published in the US as Night at the Vulcan.

"Dreams of stardom lured Martyn Tarne from faraway New Zealand to a soul-destroying round of West End agents and managers in search of work. Now, driven by sheer necessity, she accepts the humble job of dresser to the Vulcan Theatre's leading lady. But the eagerly awaited opening night brings a strange turn of the wheel of fortune - and sudden unforeseen death."
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Spinsters in Jeopardy

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1953

"High in the mountains stands an historic Saracen fortress, home of the mysterious Mr Oberon, leader of a coven of witches. Roderick Alleyn, on holiday with his family, suspects that a huge drugs ring operates from within the castle. When someone else stumbles upon the secret, Mr Oberon decides his strange rituals require a human sacrifice."
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Scales of Justice

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1955

"The inhabitants of Swevenings are stirred only by a fierce competition to catch a monster trout known to dwell in their beautiful stream. Then one of their small community is found brutally murdered; beside him is their freshly killed trout. Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's murder investigation seems to be much more interested in the fish."
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Off With His Head

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1957

Originally published in the US as Death Of A Fool.

"When the pesky Anna Bünz arrives at Mardian to investigate local folk-dancing, she quickly antagonizes the villagers. Bur Mrs Bünz is not the only source of friction. When the sword dancers' traditional mock beheading of the Winter Solstice becomes horribly real, Superintendent Roderick Alleyn finds himself faced with a complex case of gruesome proportions."
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Singing in the Shrouds

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1959

"On a cold February London night, the police find a corpse on the quayside, her body covered with flower petals and pearls. The killer, who walked away singing, is known to be one of nine passengers on the cargo ship, Cape Farewell. Superintendent Roderick Alleyn joins the ship on the most difficult assignment of his career."
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False Scent

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1960

"Mary Bellamy, darling of the London stage, holds a 50th birthday party, a gala for everyone who loves her and fears her power. Then someone uses a deadly insect spray on Mary instead of the azaleas. The suspects, all very theatrically, are playing the part of mourners. Superintendent Alleyn has to find out which one played the murderer."
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Hand in Glove

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1962

"The April Fool's Day was a roaring success for all, it seemed - except for poor Mr Cartell who ended up in the ditch - for ever. Then there was the case of Mr Percival Pyke Period's letter of condolence, sent before the body was found - not to mention the family squabbles. It's all a puzzling crime for Superintendent Alleyn."
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Dead Water

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1964

"Times are good in the Cornish village of Portcarrow, as hundreds flock to taste the healing waters of Pixie Falls. When Miss Emily Pride inherits this celebrated land, she wants to put an end to the villagers' exploitation of miracle cures, especially Miss Elspeth Cost's gift shop. But someone puts an end to Miss Cost, and Roderick Alleyn finds himself literally on the spot."
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Death at the Dolphin

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1967

Originally published in the US as Killer Dolphin.

"The bombed-out Dolphin Theatre is given to Peregrine Jay by a mysterious oil millionaire, who also gives him a glove that belonged to Shakespeare to display in the dockside theatre. But then a murder takes place, a boy is attacked, and the glove is stolen. Inspector Roderick Alleyn doesn't think oil and water are a good mix."
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Clutch of Constables

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1968

"According to Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, 'the Jampot' is an international crook who regards murder as 'tiresome and regrettable necessities'. But Alleyn's wife Troy has shared close quarters with the Jampot on a pleasure cruise along the peaceful rivers of 'Constable country' and knows something is badly wrong even before the two murders on board."
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When in Rome

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1970

"When their guide disappears mysteriously in the depths of a Roman Basilica, the members of Sebastian Mailer's tour group seem strangely unperturbed. But when a body is discovered in an Etruscan sarcophagus, Superintendent Alleyn, in Rome on the trail of an international drug racket, is very much concerned."
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Tied Up in Tinsel

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1972

"When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected - only suspicion falls not on the staff but on the unimpeachably respectable guests. When Superintendent Roderick Alleyn returns unexpectedly from a trip overseas, it is to find his beloved wife in the thick of an intriguing mystery."
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Black As He's Painted

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1974

"Called in to help with security arrangements for a presidential reception at a London embassy, Chief Superintendent Alleyn ensures the house and grounds are stiff with police. Nevertheless, an assassin strikes, and Alleyn finds no shortage of help, from Special Branch to a tribal court - and a small black cat named Lucy Lockett."
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Last Ditch

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1977

"Young Rickie Alleyn has come to the Channel Islands to write, but village life seems tedious - until he finds the stablehand in a ditch, dead from an unlucky jump. But Rickie notices something strange and his father, Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, is discreetly summoned to the scene, when Rickie disappears."
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Grave Mistake

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1978

"With two husbands dead, a daughter marrying the wrong man and a debilitating disease, it is no wonder that Sybil Foster took her own life. But Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn doesn't believe she was the type to kill herself - and he thinks someone else has made a very grave mistake."
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Photo Finish

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1980

"The luxury mansion on New Zealand's Lake Waihoe is the ideal place for a world-famous soprano to rest after her triumphant tour. Among the other guests are Chief Superintendent Alleyn and his wife - but theirs is not a social visit. When tragedy strikes, and isolated by one of the lake's sudden storms, Alleyn faces one of his trickiest cases."
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Light Thickens

Ngaio Marsh

Collins Crime Club

1982

"Peregrine Jay, owner of the Dolphin Theatre, is putting on a magnificent production of Macbeth, the play that, superstition says, always brings bad luck. But one night the claymore swings and the dummy's head is more than real: murder behind the scenes. Luckily, Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn is in the audience."
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The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio Marsh

International Polygonics

1989

A paperback edition was published by International Polygonics in 1991. Also published by Dorset Press in 1992 and again by International Polygonics, with the subtitle Alleyn And Others, in 1995.

A collection of shorter crime stories. The contents are"

  • Introduction (Douglas G. Greene)
  • Roderick Alleyn
  • Portrait Of Troy
  • Death On The Air
  • I Can Find My Way Out
  • Chapter And Verse: The Little Copplestone Mystery
  • The Hand In The Sand
  • The Cupid Mirror
  • A Fool About Money
  • Morepork
  • A Telescript: Evil Liver / Comments: The Case With Five Solutions
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Death on the Air And Other Stories

Ngaio Marsh

Harper Collins

1995

"The only collection of Ngaio Marsh short stories, first published in 1995 to celebrate her centenary, now with two additional stories. A man dies with his hand on a radio dial. A disguised aristocrat finds murder at the opening night of a play. A cryptogram produces death in an English churchyard. These are the short cases of Scotland Yard’s Inspector Roderick Alleyn who, with his lovely wife Agatha Troy, charmed his way through more than thirty novels. …. Death on the Air and Other Stories serves both as the perfect introduction to Ngaio Marsh and as a nostalgic journey for the aficionado, each story echoing the themes explored in her detective novels."
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Collected Short Mysteries

Ngaio Marsh

Felony & Mayhem

2016

The contents of this collection are the same as the 1989 publication The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh.

  • Introduction (Douglas G. Greene)
  • Roderick Alleyn
  • Portrait Of Troy
  • Death On The Air
  • I Can Find My Way Out
  • Chapter And Verse: The Little Copplestone Mystery
  • The Hand In The Sand
  • The Cupid Mirror
  • A Fool About Money
  • Morepork
  • A Telescript: Evil Liver / Comments: The Case With Five Solutions
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Money in the Morgue

Ngaio Marsh & Stella Duffy

Harper Collins

2018

A novel completed by Stella Duffy based on an unfinished manuscript written by Ngaio Marsh in the 1940's.

"It’s business as usual for Mr Glossop as he does his regular round delivering wages to government buildings scattered across New Zealand’s lonely Canterbury plains. But when his car breaks down he is stranded for the night at the isolated Mount Seager Hospital, with the telephone lines down, a storm on its way and the nearby river about to burst its banks. Trapped with him at Mount Seager are a group of quarantined soldiers with a serious case of cabin fever, three young employees embroiled in a tense love triangle, a dying elderly man, an elusive patient whose origins remain a mystery … and a potential killer. When the payroll disappears from a locked safe and the hospital’s death toll starts to rise faster than normal, can the appearance of an English detective working in counterespionage be just a lucky coincidence – or is something more sinister afoot?"
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Ngaio Marsh: Inspector Alleyn Mysteries collected edition

Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 1

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2009

Collects together the three novels A Man Lay Dead, Enter a Murderer and The Nursing Home Murder, plus the essay Roderick Alleyn and the short story Moonshine.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 2

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2009

Collects together the three novels Death in Ecstasy, Vintage Murder, and Artists in Crime, plus the essay Portrait Of Troy.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 3

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2009

Collects together the three novels Death in a White Tie, Overture to Death and Death at the Bar, plus the short story The Figure Quoted.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 4

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2009

Collects together the three novels A Surfeit of Lampreys, Death and the Dancing Footman and Colour Scheme, plus the short story A Fool About Money.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 5

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2009

Collects together the three novels Died in the Wool, Final Curtain and Swing Brother Swing, plus and excerpt from the story I Can Find My Way Out.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 6

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2009

Collects together the three novels Opening Night, Spinsters in Jeopardy and Scales of Justice, plus the short story The Hand In The Sand.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 7

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2009

Collects together the three novels Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds and False Scent, plus the short story My Poor Boy.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 8

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2010

Collects together the three novels Death at the Dolphin, Hand in Glove and Dead Water, plus the short story The Cupid Mirror.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 9

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2010

Collects together the three novels Clutch of Constables, When in Rome and Tied Up in Tinsel, plus the short story Chapter And Verse: The Little Copplestone Mystery.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 10

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2010

Collects together the three novels Last Ditch, Black As He’s Painted and Grave Mistake, plus the short story Evil Liver.

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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Collection 11

Ngaio Marsh

HarperCollins

2010

Collects together the two novels Photo-Finish and Light Thickens; the autobiography Black Beech and Honeydew; and the short story Morepork.

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Ngaio Marsh: Autobiography and other non-fiction

New Zealand

Ngaio Marsh

Collins

1942

Also published by MacMillan in 1965.

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Black Beech and Honeydew

Ngaio Marsh

Collins

1965

Published in the US by Little, Brown & Company. A revised edition was published in 1981 by Collins. This revised edition was republished by HarperCollins in 1984 and 2002.

"Widely acclaimed when first published in 1965, Black Beech and Honeydew is a sensitive account of Ngaio Marsh’s childhood and adolescence in Christchurch and the establishment of her theatre and writing careers both there and in the UK. It captures all the joys, fears and hopes of a spirited young woman growing up and transmits an artist’s gradual awareness of the special flavour of life in New Zealand and the individual character of its landscape. Fully revised and updated in 1981 it is a sanguine, poised, unpretentious, thoughtful and often moving record of a full life…. No one who had read and enjoyed any of Ngaio Marsh’s 32 novels can afford to overlook this gifted and charming autobiography."
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Biographical and critical books about Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio Marsh: A Life

Margaret Lewis

Chatto & Windus

1991

Also published by Random House / Hogarth Press (1992) and Poisoned Pen Press (1998).

"Marsh's talent was as varied as her heritage. A gifted artist, a spirited dramatist, actress, and producer, her crime fiction embraces her triple interests. Scotland Yard's Alleyn is named for famous Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn .His wife, Agatha Troy, is a talented artist. Nearly all Marsh's novels reference one of Shakespeare's plays. Many are set in the worlds of art and theatre. Most are conceived with the dramatist's eye, a keen one, as her high honours for mystery and her work in the theatre attest. Biographer Margaret Lewis explores these diverse worlds and the rich harvest of Marsh's long life. Lively, acute, sympathetic, she paints a well balanced portrait of a woman leading a single life who was never alone nor lonely, an Edwardian who followed her muses in a thoroughly modern manner, and a writer who, while invincibly Colonial, celebrated England's Golden Age of mystery as royally as its other Queens of Crime."
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Ngaio Marsh (Twayne's English Author Series)

Kathryn Slate McDorman

Twayne Publishers

1991

"Examines Marsh's thirty-two detective novels, providing a biographical analysis of her work and a detailed assessment of her relationship to the form and style of classic detective fiction of the 1920s and 1930s."
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Ngaio Marsh: The Woman and Her Work

Editor: B.J. Rahn

Scarecrow Press

1995

Also published by Scarecrow Press in 2007.

"Ngaio Marsh: The Woman and Her Work is a collection of essays celebrating this multifaceted talent-painter, playwright, director and detective novelist. Originally created to celebrate the centenary of Marsh's birth, this comprehensive profile addresses various aspects of this remarkable woman's personality, life, and work. In addition to the thirteen essays, this volume contains a chronology of Marsh's plays, as well as a bibliography of her novels and short stories. Nominated for both an Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction and an Anthony Award for Best Critical Work, this book is a fitting tribute to an extraordinary woman who captured international acclaim in literature and the arts."
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Murder Most Poetic: The Mystery Novels of Ngaio Marsh

Mary S. Weinkauf

Brownstone Mystery Guides Volume 14

Borgo Press

2007

"Dr. Weinkauf provides a complete overview of Ngaio Marsh's crime novels, from her beginnings in 1934 to her final book, "Light Thickens," published posthumously in 1982"
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Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime

Joanne Drayton

HarperCollins (New Zealand)

2008

The paperback edition was published in 2009.

"This fascinating biography of Ngaio Marsh pieces together both the public and private Marsh in a way that is as riveting as a crime novel. Through her writing and her theatre work, Joanne Drayton assembles the pieces to the puzzle that is Marsh, proving that life can be as thrilling as fiction. Marsh wrote her first detective novel in a London flat in the depths of the 1930s Depression, bringing life to Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn in her first book, A Man Lay Dead. Through 32 novels he would establish himself as one of the great super-sleuths, and Marsh as one of the four Queens of Golden Age detective fiction, alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham. In 1932, a family tragedy brought Marsh home to New Zealand, to a life divided - between hemispheres, between passionate relationships at home and abroad, and between the world of publishing and her life as a stage director."
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Last updated January 2018