Ngaio Marsh - A Queen of Crime

                 

In the 1990s the BBC produced a series of nine film-length episodes of the mysteries of Inspector Alleyn. These are beautifully crafted period pieces, with production values typical of the BBC at its best, set in pre-War London and featuring the exploits of gentleman detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn of the Metropolitan Police. Inspector Alleyn is played by Patrick Malahide. The series is mentioned and recommended here because of its high quality and because it is testimony to the work of Dame Ngaio Marsh, the New Zealand crime writer who created the Alleyn character over thirty-two excellent novels from 1934 through to 1982.

Dame Marsh, pictured above, is the least recognised of the so-called 'Queens of Crime' along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham. Her works are deserving of a much wider readership and in some instances are of greater literary merit than those of the better known women writers just listed. Born to a poor family in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1895, she studied painting at the Canterbury School of Arts before turning to a life in the theatre. These interests are reflected in the character of Roderick Alleyn who, along with his police duties, has a passion for theatre and painting. It is safe to say, therefore, that the Alleyn character is a projection of the author herself. In 1928 she went to the United Kingdom and for the rest of her life alternated between life there and in her native New Zealand. She remained unmarried and had no children (and stridently denied being a lesbian, thank you! She was an artist and a spinster, a fact that people of our own prejudiced era find hard to understand.) She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966.

The great pity is that the BBC only tackled nine of her thirty-two novels. Both the novels and the BBC renderings are highly recommended. The novels covered by the BBC, in order of their publication were:

A Man Lay Dead - 1934
The Nursing Home Murder - 1935
Artists in Crime - 1938
Death in a White Tie - 1938
Death at the Bar - 1939
Final Curtain - 1947
Scales of Justice - 1958
Hand in Glove - 1962
Dead Water - 1964


Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black