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Ngaio Marsh

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Born: April 22 1895

Died: 1717 02 19821982

Dame Ngaio Marsh, born Edith Ngaio Marsh, was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. There is some uncertainty over her birth date as her father neglected to register her birth until 1900, but she was born in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand.

Of all the "Great Ladies" of the English mystery's golden age, including Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh alone survived to publish in the 1980s. Over a fifty-year span, from 1932 to 1982, Marsh wrote thirty-two classic English detective novels, which gained international acclaim. She did not always see herself as a writer, but first planned a career as a painter.

Marsh's first novel, A MAN LAY DEAD , which she wrote in London in 1931-32, introduced the detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn: a combination of Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey and a realistically depicted police official at work. Throughout the 1930s Marsh painted occasionally, wrote plays for local repertory societies in New Zealand, and published detective novels. In 1937 Marsh went to England for a period. Before going back to her home country, she spent six months travelling about Europe.

All her novels feature British CID detective Roderick Alleyn. Several novels feature Marsh's other loves, the theatre and painting. A number are set around theatrical productions , and two others are about actors off stage . Her short story "'I Can Find My Way Out" is also set around a theatrical production and is the earlier "Jupiter case" referred to in Opening Night. Alleyn marries a painter, Agatha Troy, whom he meets during an investigation , and who features in several later novels.

Series:
* Roderick Alleyn

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Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio Marsh

Books from Ngaio Marsh

Enter a Murderer

Clutch of Constables

Scales of Justice

Overture to Death

Final Curtain

Death and the Dancing Footman

Vintage Murder

Tied Up In Tinsel

Photo Finish

When in Rome

Black As He's Painted

Murder Under the Christmas Tree: Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season

Death In A White Tie

The Nursing Home Murder

Death on the Air and Other Stories

Death in Ecstasy

Surfeit of Lampreys

Artists in Crime

A Man Lay Dead

Spinsters in Jeopardy