Tue 14 Jul 2015
IT’S ABOUT CRIME: NGAIO MARSH, by Marvin Lachman.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[8] Comments
by Marvin Lachman
[Back in 1982] Jove Books was busily reprinting virtually all of Ngaio Marsh’s books, making it possible for the reader to trace her long career from its beginning, with A Man Lay Dead (1934), to her latest in paperback, Photo Finish (1980). [At the time this essay first appeared] one book remained to be published, posthumously: Light Thickens (Little Brown, 1982).
Like her contemporaries, Sayers and Allingham, Marsh used elements of the thriller in her early work. A Man Lay Dead, though a detective story, is also about Bolsheviks, spies, and maidens in distress. It moves at a far crisper pace than later Marsh because there are fewer long passages detailing the interrogation of suspects. If Marsh had a weakness, it was that her hero, Roderick Alleyn, spent too much time asking questions.
More than compensating was her use of unusual murder methods. I can think of few authors as imaginative in how they disposed of victims-to-be. My favorite is the gun-in-the-piano in Overture to Death (1939), but there are other contenders; e.g., the wool-compressing machine in Died in the Wool (1945) and the swinging champagne bottle in Vintage Murder (1937).
Another Marsh strength was what Howard Haycraft dubbed the “Marsh-milieu.” It was a world of artists, theater people, aristocracy, and civilized policemen. Far removed from the usual settings for murder in real life, it was all the better for escape reading because of that.
Especially attractive were such theater novels as Night at the Vulcan (1951) and Killer Dolphin (1966). Not only did she make the people come alive, but she made you feel you were physically inside the theater.
Generally, Marsh’s novels did not change too much from the classic detective type she used in her second, Enter a Murderer (1935). She returned to the thriller once, with excellent results, in Spinsters in Jeopardy (1953). Her attempts to modernize her books, by using the drug scene in When in Rome (1970), the leader of an emerging African nation in Black as He’s Painted (1974), or the Mafia in Photo Finish, were not fully successful. Yet, each of these hooks contained enough traditional Marsh to satisfy her fans.
If I had a gun to my head and had to select only two Marsh books to recommend, I would pick Overture to Death and Death in a White Tie (1938). However, there are almost thirty others which I’ve read, enjoyed, and can recommend. Thankfully most are [still] available.
July 14th, 2015 at 6:35 pm
Jove is no longer in business, as far as I know, and the series of Marsh books they reprinted is long out of print.
But the good news is that all of the books themselves can still obtained easily if not inexpensively. I believe Felony & Mayhem have done them all in the trade paperback format, or if not, they are well on their way to doing so. Here’s a link to their webpage:
http://felonyandmayhem.com/book_authors/ngaio-marsh/
As for me, I remember the death scene in DIED IN THE WOOL very well. I was in my teens and obviously very impressionable!
Reprinting an overview of an excellent mystery series such as the Alleyn books brings back a lot of memories. Most of them I haven’t read in 30 or 40 years. I may have made a mistake when it comes to the final one in the series, LIGHT THICKENS. I know it was the last one, so I deliberately postponed reading it, realizing that once read, there wouldn’t be any more.
Guess what. I still haven’t read it.
July 14th, 2015 at 11:02 pm
Died in The Wool and Death in White Tie are my favorites though I enjoy the theatrical and artists settings.
I always felt that Marsh got short changed a bit among the big four women writers (Christie, Sayers, Allingham) when it came to critical appreciation of her work, and certainly she is the only one who was more or less guest celebrity on an episode of M*A*S*H.
July 14th, 2015 at 11:23 pm
Was Jove the remnants of Pyramid? I seem to recall a connection there for some reason.
July 14th, 2015 at 11:31 pm
Yes, you’re right about Jove. I never got the details nailed down for sure, but here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
“Jove Books, formerly known as Pyramid Books, is a paperback publishing company, founded in 1949 by Almat Magazine Publishers (Alfred R. Plaine and Matthew Huttner). The company was sold to the Walter Reade Organization in the late 1960s. It was acquired in 1974 by Harcourt Brace (which became Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) which renamed it to Jove in 1977 and continued the line as an imprint. In 1979, they sold it to The Putnam Berkley Group, which is now part of the Penguin Group.”
All the old publishing lines are now maybe two big conglomerates.
I chose the cover images from ones Jove did around the time wrote this short piece on Marsh. They’re OK as cover art, to my way of thinking, but nothing overly special.
July 17th, 2015 at 12:29 pm
I felt a sense of regret when I read the last novel in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series, FIDDLERS (2005). I’ve read about a dozen Ngaio Marsh mysteries. You’re right about the JOVE covers: very ordinary.
July 17th, 2015 at 1:49 pm
I haven’t read as many of her works as I should have, and most (but not all) of those have been her later ones — those written in the late 50s and later. I think the next one by her I’ll read, I’ll make sure to pick one from the 30s.
July 17th, 2015 at 1:57 pm
I read (reread in some cases) all of my way through Marsh’s detective fiction a few years ago, and also tried to save LIGHT THICKENS for the last one. Which turned out to be a good idea, since I think it’s a near-stunner, and certainly one of my four or five favorite Marsh books. (The problem with all of her theater-oriented books, though, is that I feel unhappy that I’ll never have a chance to see the (fictional) productions of the plays in question, and in some cases where their runs are shortened thanks to murder and such, as is the case here, that even most of faceless theater fans in Alleyn’s London will be missing out.)
July 17th, 2015 at 2:10 pm
I’ve read all of Ngaio Marsh books (done in a frenzy over a few months a couple of years ago) and think much more highly of her work than I do of either Sayers or Allingham (who I don’t like at all so maybe it’s not fair for me to include her name).
For me, Marsh is second only to Christie, of the women Golden Agers.
I loved DIED IN THE WOOL, ARTISTS IN CRIME, A CLUTCH OF CONSTABLES, A SURFEIT OF LAMPREYS and most of the theater books and have a special fondness for SPINSTERS IN JEOPARDY because of the Alleyns’ precocious son who made me laugh. I even love the serial killer book, SINGING IN THE SHROUDS. So my discernment is doubtless suspect.