In her essay, “Birth of a Sleuth,” mystery novelist Ngaio Marsh described how she invented Roderick Alleyn, the protagonist in her detective novels: He was born with the rank of Detective-Inspector, C.I.D., on a very wet Saturday afternoon in a basement flat off Sloane Square, in London. The year was 1931.
Marsh had been living in England for several years, and, after reading a popular detective novel from the local library, she decided to write one herself. She ran out to the local shop, bought some notebooks, and started immediately. After a few months of writing in the evenings, she had a finished novel. Soon afterwards, she was called back to her homeland of New Zealand, leaving the novel with a publisher friend. A Man Lay Dead was published in 1934, and thus the fourth “queen of crime” began her mystery-writing career.
Ngaio Marsh was the most unusual of the four “queens of crime”. Unlike Christie, Sayers, and Allingham, she was born in New Zealand and lived there for much of her life. She also remained single all her life, surrounding herself with good friends and colleagues and throwing herself into her work in theatre.
While her father had migrated from England as a young man, her mother’s family had lived in New Zealand for generations, and Marsh’s grandfather was well known in Christchurch. After finishing school, Marsh worked as a professional painter and an actress for a few years before setting sail for England to visit friends. However, it was her love for England that set the stage for her future. In order to live in London, Marsh needed money, so she and a friend opened a shop in the city, which proved successful. It was only when her father cabled that her mother was very ill in 1932 that Marsh dragged herself away and returned to her homeland.
Although A Man Lay Dead was her first novel, she was not new to writing. Marsh had written for years--newspaper articles, travel articles, reviews, and even an unpublished novel set in New Zealand. Her first detective novel was a great success in England, and she went on to set her second mystery, Enter A Murderer, in the theatre world she knew best.
While she followed many of the same rules of the Golden Age-mystery genre, Marsh focused more on characterization and literary technique than plot. Inspector Alleyn is from an aristocratic family and well educated, like Sayers’ Peter Wimsey and Allingham’s Campion, but he’s a professional policeman and more down to earth. She incorporated many of her interests and experiences into her books, including Shakespeare, art and painting, country houses, and London, and even included a family of friends, with whom she was very close, as some of her most engaging characters, The Lampreys.
Even though her permanent home was in New Zealand, she continued to write mystery novels set in England. This required her to return to London periodically, starting in 1937, and she travelled between the two countries for the remainder of her life. While in England, she participated in London’s literary life, making friends of other authors, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, and becoming a regular visitor to the Detection Club meetings with other mystery writers.
While her detective fiction was a main source of income for Marsh, it was theatre that was her first love. In New Zealand, she is best known for her work in bringing Shakespeare back to her home country during the war years and mentoring young actors. Actor Sir Anthony Quayle wrote about her, She was a generous, intelligent, warm-hearted spirit and made the world a richer place.
After the war, she divided her time between writing and the theatre world, alternating between creating new books, giving interviews, writing articles, and producing plays. Her efforts were rewarded in 1948, when she was made an Officer in the Order of the British Empire by King George VI and again in 1966, when she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
In her native New Zealand, the Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of Canterbury was named in her honor, and she is remembered for her work in establishing a flourishing theatre industry, but, for the rest of the world, her greatest achievements are her 32 detective novels, featuring Roderick Alleyn, and being one of the top women detective fiction writers of all time.
If you’d like to read Marsh’s detective fiction, several of the titles are on the CRRL My Librarian: Meet Inspector Alleyn book list. For the entire series, including some on audio, look in Hoopla: Roderick Alleyn Series.
