I HAVE ALWAYS IMAGINED THAT PARADISE WILL BE A KIND OF LIBRARY

I HAVE ALWAYS IMAGINED THAT PARADISE WILL BE A KIND OF LIBRARY

Sunday, February 8, 2015

NGAIO MARSH



"Dame Ngaio Marsh DBE" ( 23 April 1895 – 18 February 1982), born "Edith Ngaio Marsh", was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966.

Internationally, "Ngaio Marsh" is known primarily for her creation "Inspector Roderick Alleyn", a gentleman detective who works for the Metropolitan Police (London). He marries a painter, "Agatha Troy", whom he meets during an investigation ("Artists in Crime"), and who features in several later novels.

Several of her novels depict her love for theatre and paintings and are set around theatrical productions. 

Most of her novels are set in England but few are set in New Zealand, with "Inspector Roderick Alleyn" either on secondment to the New Zealand police or on holiday.

Along with "Dorothy L. Sayers", "Margery Allingham" and "Agatha Christie", she has been classed as one of the four original "Queens of Crime"—female writers who dominated the crime fiction genre in the Golden Age of the 1920s and 1930s.

"INSPECTOR RODERICK ALLEYN" MYSTERY SERIES:


1) A Man Lay Dead (1931)



At Sir Hubert Handesley's country house party, five guests have gathered for the uproarious parlor game of "Murder." Yet no one is laughing when the lights come up on an actual corpse, the good-looking and mysterious Charles Rankin. Scotland Yard's "Inspector Roderick Alleyn" arrives to find a complete collection of alibis, a missing butler, and an intricate puzzle of betrayal and sedition in the search for the key player in this deadly game.

2) Enter a Murderer (1935)
3) The Nursing Home Murder (1936)
4) Death in Ecstasy (1936)
5) Vintage Murder (1937)
6) Artists in Crime (1938)
7) Death in a White Tie (1938)
8) Overture to Death (1939)
9) Death at the Bar (1940)

(Books Not Yet Read)

10) Death of a Peer (1940), aka: Surfeit of Lampreys
11) Death and the Dancing Footman (1941)
12) Colour Scheme (1944)
13) Died in the Wool (1945)
14) Final Curtain (1947)
15) A Wreath for Rivera (1949), aka: Swing, Brother, Swing
16) Night at the Vulcan (1951), aka: Opening Night
17) Spinsters in Jeopardy (1953), aka: The Bride of Death
18) Scales of Justice (1955)
19) Death of a Fool (1956), aka: Off with His Head
20) Singing in the Shrouds (1958)
21) False Scent (1959)
22) Hand in Glove (1962)
23) Dead Water (1963)
24) Killer Dolphin (1966), aka: Death at the Dolphin
25) Clutch of Constables (1969)
26) When in Rome (1971)
27) Tied Up in Tinsel (1972)
28) Black As He's Painted (1974)
29) Last Ditch (1977)
30) Grave Mistake (1978)
31) Photo Finish (1980)
32) Light Thickens (1982)





3 comments:

  1. I am sorry to say have not read even one of her novels. I must now do so at earliest.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, I myself discovered "Inspector Roderick Alleyn" Mystery Series, only few years before, during one of my trips to UK, while browsing in the huge and wonderful bookstore: Waterstones, Piccadilly :-)

      These books are definitely worth reading, ...and I would highly recommend them to readers of Mysteries, ...especially to those who like Classic British Police Procedurals.

      Anyway, hope you enjoy reading them when you get a chance to do so :-)

      Delete
  2. Thank you very much for your kind offer. However,  I should mention that the main objective of this blog is to recommend wonderful authors of cozy mysteries. Which I do so by posting information about the authors of this genre, whose books I particularly enjoy, as well as describing their mystery series. Sometimes, I even do a kind of 'overall-series-review', but I usually don't review each book separately. If I ever do add the feature of 'individual-book-review' in this blog, then I will be sure to contact you and take advantage of your service. In any case, thanks again, for contacting me...!

    ReplyDelete