Nicholas Blake’s first Nigel Strangeways Mystery, A
Question of Proof, published in 1935, is a cleverly written story set in a public
school for boys with a complex plot that keeps the reader guessing right till
the end.
It is the annual sports day at Sudely Hall on a glorious
summer’s day and all the parents and children are looking forward to the races.
But by the end of the afternoon the police have to be called when the
headmaster’s obnoxious nephew is found in a haystack having been strangled.
The English master, Michael Evans, who is in love with
the headmaster’s beautiful young wife, soon finds himself the police’s main suspect
for the murder and so he calls in Nigel Strangeways, an old friend from
university who has become an amateur detective, to investigate the case ‘on
behalf of the school’.
The author of A Question of Proof was the poet Cecil
Day-Lewis, who eventually became Poet Laureate. At the age of 31 he turned to
crime writing to supplement his income from poetry, using the pseudonym
Nicholas Blake.
He was hailed by the reviewers as a master of
detective fiction and went on to produce another 15 Nigel Strangeways Mysteries
as well as four detective novels and some short stories that don’t feature his
series character.
Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, alias novelist Nicholas Blake
I was surprised when I began reading A
Question of Proof that an omniscient point of view is used at the start to show
the reader round the school and introduce the main characters among the masters
and the boys.
The spotlight is on the young good-looking Evans, who
is preoccupied with arranging a secret assignation with Hero, the wife of the
Rev Percival Vale, the headmaster.
But once Nigel Strangeways arrives, the story is
mostly told from his point of view. He joins forces with the investigating
officer, Superintendent Armstrong, to try to solve the crime. Armstrong’s willing
cooperation is explained by the fact that Strangeways is a nephew to the Assistant
Commissioner of Scotland Yard.
Cecil Day-Lewis, aka Nicholas Blake, describes the
environment of a public school for boys brilliantly, showing the bickering
between the masters and the factions among the boys. Strangeways is received
well by masters and boys alike and quickly reveals his talent for blending in with
any company, along with displaying his own small eccentricities, such as
drinking large quantities of tea.
In order to solve the crime, he has to join the Black
Spot gang and pass the initiation rituals imposed by the members, but he then
has the support of a small group of boys who open up about what they know and help
him with his investigation. Interestingly, he uses psychology to solve the
crime, rather than concentrating on the most obvious suspects in the manner of the
police. It is not surprising that Strangeways was a fictional detective who was
going to live on for another 30 years.
All the Nigel Strangeways Mysteries have now been
republished by Vintage Books.
Edgar
Allan Poe invented the fictional detective in April 1841
The first
detective story by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, The Murders in the Rue
Morgue, was published in a magazine 180 years ago this month.
Although
Poe himself referred to it as one of his ‘tales of ratiocination’, the work has
since been hailed as the first modern detective story.
The first story about amateur sleuth C Auguste Dupin
Poe’s
fictional amateur detective, C Auguste Dupin, solves the savage murder of two
women living in a house in the Rue Morgue in Paris, demonstrating many of the
traits which were to become literary conventions in stories about subsequent
fictional detectives, such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.
The
creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, praised Dupin as ‘the best
detective in fiction’.
The
murders in Poe’s first detective story appear to have been committed in a
locked room on the fourth floor of an otherwise uninhabited house. Neighbours
hearing the agonised screams of the women victims break into the house, but
find only two dead bodies and no other person anywhere in the property.
For the
very first time, the reader is told that the local police are completely
baffled.
The story
begins with the unnamed narrator of the story first meeting Dupin when they are
both trying to obtain the same rare book.
The two
men become friends and decide to share a rented property together in Paris.
The
narrator is constantly amazed by Dupin’s brilliance and powers of deduction. In
one scene, Dupin is able to work out what his friend is thinking and answer him
before he has even asked a question.
When the
two men read about the murders in the newspaper, Dupin is immediately
interested and gets permission from the police to visit the house and assess
the crime scene in the locked room.
From what
Dupin observes there he is able to work out what has happened and who is
responsible for the murders. He convinces the police to release the man they
have mistakenly arrested and finally explains to the narrator how he has solved
the mystery from the clues he observed at the crime scene.
Poe wrote
his first detective story at the age of 32 and was paid $56 for the publication
rights by Graham’s Magazine, based in Philadelphia. It appeared in the April
1841 edition and became the prototype for many future stories featuring
fictional detectives.
Poe's narrator technique was taken up by Conan Doyle. His Dr Watson
narrated the circumstances surrounding the cases solved by Sherlock Holmes and
marvelled at the amazing powers of deduction of the friend with whom he shared
rented rooms. The first story, A Study in Scarlet, was published in 1887.
Captain
Hastings began narrating stories about the cases solved by Hercule Poirot in
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, published in 1920.
There
were just three Dupin short stories, but the Mystery Writers of America still
honour Edgar Allan Poe annually by presenting the Edgar Award for distinguished
work in the mystery genre.
Detective
novelist Dorothy L Sayers has described the three Dupin stories as ‘almost a
complete manual of detective theory and practice.’
The
Murders in the Rue Morgue and the two other Dupin stories were republished in a
single volume by Vintage Classics in 2009.
Complimentary
theatre ticket gives Inspector Alleyn a front row seat for murder
Patrick Malahide played Alleyn on TV in the 1990s
Ngaio
Marsh draws on her experience as a theatre director in New Zealand to describe
the background of her second Inspector Roderick Alleyn novel published in 1935.
In Enter
a Murderer, she places Inspector Alleyn near the front of the audience at a
London theatre when one of the actors is shot dead on the stage.
A
character in the play is meant to be shot with a gun loaded with dummy
cartridges, but when he falls down and the horrified cast realise he is dead
for real, the gentleman detective, Alleyn, suspects foul play immediately.
He had
been invited to the theatre by his friend, the journalist Nigel Bathgate, who
he met when investigating the death of a guest at a country house party in the
first novel, A Man Lay Dead.
Nigel has
been given complimentary tickets for the play by his old University friend,
Felix Gardener, who is playing the male lead in the production.
Alleyn
and Bathgate visit Felix in his dressing room before the play starts and are
actually introduced to Arthur Surbonadier, the actor who is going to be the
murder victim. He is clearly the worse for wear because he has been drinking
and demonstrates that he is jealous of Felix because of his blossoming
relationship with Stephanie, who is playing the female lead.
Alleyn
and Bathgate leave to take their seats front of house because they feel
uncomfortable in the acrimonious atmosphere of the dressing room.
After
Arthur has been shot and it becomes clear that he really is dead, the
production is halted and the audience sent home.
You can read Ngaio Marsh's first three Alleyn novels in one volume
Helped by
his team who arrive from Scotland Yard, Alleyn secures the forensic evidence
and interview all the members of the cast.
At this
point I was surprised by Alleyn’s demeanour as he makes jokes for the benefit
of Bathgate and his fellow officers, which hardly seemed appropriate, but then
I thought of Dorothy L Sayers and her sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Margery
Allingham and her investigator, Albert Campion, and I realised this clowning
around was the fashion at the time and perhaps a nudge to the reader not to
take the story too seriously.
I was
also surprised Alleyn allows Bathgate to play an active part in the case and
sit in on the interviews and take notes.
Bathgate
is involved in the investigation in Ngaio’s first novel, A Man Lay Dead, but
that was because he was actually staying in the house where the murder
investigation takes place and couldn’t be sent away.
But then
I realised Bathgate is kept around in Enter a Murderer to be the Watson for
Alleyn. He gets to know some of what the detective is thinking but not all of
it and, like the reader, he has no idea what to expect at the end.
I was
slightly disappointed at the denouement when Alleyn uses the same trick as in
the first novel, A Man Lay Dead, and holds a re-enactment of the murder. This
time he has all the actors taking part, which eventually leads the murderer to
incriminate himself.
But Enter
a Murderer certainly fulfils what the reader expects from a detective novel as
it is an interesting story with a surprise at the end. Ngaio describes life
backstage at a theatre very well, drawing on her own experiences of acting and
directing
Ngaio Marsh
Her great
passion was the theatre and she joined a touring company in New Zealand as an
actress in 1916. Later in life, she directed several of Shakespeare’s plays for
New Zealand audiences and lived long enough to see the theatre firmly
established in her own country and provided with proper financial support.
The
University of Canterbury in New Zealand named their theatre the Ngaio Marsh
Theatre and she was made a Dame in the 1966 Queen’s Birthday Honours for
services to the arts.
The title, Enter a Murderer, is taken from a line of stage direction from Shakespeare’s
play, Macbeth.
Enter a
Murderer by Ngaio Marsh is available as a hardback, paperback, Kindle or
Audiobook. I read it as part of an omnibus edition comprising A Man Lay Dead, Enter a Murderer and The Nursing Home Murder - the first three Roderick Alleyn mysteries.
Important
advice for aspiring crime writers from author P D James
Over the
years P D James has consistently maintained that setting is a key element in a
detective novel.
When I
interviewed her for a newspaper feature in the 1990s she said her own novels
were nearly always inspired by a particular place she had visited.
She loved
the East Anglian coasts, Suffolk in particular, and set many of her novels in seaside towns
she found particularly inspiring, having explored them thoroughly to enable her
to describe the setting for her stories evocatively.
Helpful book for novice crime writers
She
believed that it is only if the action is firmly rooted in a physical reality
that the reader can fully enter into the world of the characters. She agreed
with the many crime fiction readers who have said convincing
characters are important, but felt the setting for a novel, the place where the
characters live and move about, is also a vital element.
In her
book Talking about Detective Fiction, P D James says the world in which the
characters in a novel live has to be made to seem real. She writes: ‘We (the
readers) need to breathe their air, see with their eyes, walk the paths they
tread and inhabit the rooms the writer has furnished for them.’
She also
believes it’s important for the setting to be seen through the eyes of one of
the characters, not merely described by the author, and that setting can
establish the mood of a novel, citing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the
Baskervilles as an example.
P D James
writes: ‘We only have to think of …that dark and sinister mansion, set in the
middle of the fog-shrouded moor, to appreciate how important setting can be to
the establishment of atmosphere. The Hound of Wimbledon Common would hardly
provide such a frisson of terror.’
She was
inspired to write her novel, Devices and Desires, (1989), one of her 14 novels
featuring the detective Adam Dalgliesh, while on a visit of exploration in East
Anglia, when she was standing on a deserted shingle beach one day.
She
writes: ‘There were a few wooden boats drawn up on the beach, a couple of brown
nets slung between poles and drying in the wind and, looking out over the
sullen and dangerous North Sea, I could imagine myself standing in the same
place hundreds of years ago with the taste of salt on my lips and the constant
hiss and withdrawing rattle of the tide. Then, turning my eyes to the south, I
saw the great outline of Sizewell nuclear power station and immediately I knew
that I had found the setting for my next novel.’
PD James
says she was excited because she knew that however long the writing took she
would eventually have a novel.
She began
her research by visiting nuclear power stations and speaking to the scientists
to find out how nuclear power stations are run.
Bergamo's historical upper town
I took
the advice PD James gave me when I met her in the 1990s, but it was not until many years after I
had interviewed her that I wrote my first novel, Death in the High City, having
been inspired by the magical city of Bergamo in northern Italy.
PD James
wrote her book, Talking about Detective Fiction, at the request of the Bodleian
publishing department. She says she was invited by the Librarian to write a
book in aid of the Library on the subject of British detective fiction, because
it is a form of popular literature that had for over 50 years fascinated her
and engaged her as a writer.
At the
beginning she describes how the genre started in the 19th century, pinpointing
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins as the first English detective story. She then
discusses the contributions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with his character,
Sherlock Holmes, and G K Chesterton, with his amateur sleuth, Father Brown.
The work
of the four Queens of Crime – Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery
Allingham and Ngaio Marsh is evaluated along with that of other Golden Age
writers. She then casts her eye over the American PI offshoot from the genre
and the modern developments British writers have now introduced.
Perhaps
the most helpful to aspiring crime writers are the final three chapters of this
fascinating little book, where P D James deals with setting, viewpoint and
character.
Looking
into the future, she predicts that many people will continue to turn to the
detective story for ‘relief, entertainment and mild intellectual challenge.’
PD James
published her final Adam Dalgliesh novel, The Private Patient, in 2008.
Talking
about Detective Fiction was published by Bodleian Library in 2009.
PD James
died in November 2014 in Oxford.
Talking about Detective Fiction is available from or
My 2015 edition of The Haunted Hotel, first published in 1878
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, published in 1868, has been talked of as the first English detective novel as it established many of the ground rules of the modern genre. There is a detective, Sergeant Cuff, a country house setting, false suspects and a final twist in the plot.
Wilkie Collins wrote The Haunted Hotel ten years after The Moonstone was published. I was delighted recently when I received a copy of The Haunted Hotel as a present because I wondered how closely it would resemble a detective story, which is my favourite genre. I was also intrigued because a lot of the story takes place in Venice, a city that I love.
Collins was known for writing sensation novels, or sensation fiction, which was at the peak of its popularity in the 1860s and 1870s. His novel, The Woman in White, published in 1860, is one of the finest examples of sensation fiction, so called because it was written to play on the nerves and excite the senses of the reader.
In The Haunted Hotel, Collins makes the reader think he is going to write a novel that deals with the supernatural, as very early in the book questions are raised about being able to predict the future and being able to sense evil in a room.
The story begins with a London doctor being visited by a foreign Countess who is desperate for him to tell her whether she is evil, or insane. She is about to marry a nobleman, Lord Montbarry, but has discovered that he was engaged to another woman when he proposed to her, who has subsequently released him from the engagement.
Wilkie Collins is best known for his 1859 novel The Woman in White
After the marriage has taken place and the couple are away on their honeymoon, the story is told from the point of view of the jilted woman, Agnes, who is perceived by all her friends as a kind, loving, good person.
Mrs Ferrari, a woman Agnes has known since childhood, then comes to her for help. She is married to an Italian courier who desperately needs work. She asks Agnes to recommend her husband to a newly married couple who are about to tour Italy. When Agnes discovers the couple are Lord and Lady Montbarry, she is reluctant to intervene, but out of sympathy for the woman she eventually agrees that the courier can mention her name to help him secure the job.
Mr Ferrari accompanies the newlyweds to Italy while Agnes goes to stay with friends in Ireland.
On her return to London she receives the news from Mrs Ferrari that the courier’s letters have stopped coming and that no one has seen or heard of him for weeks.
Then Mrs Ferrari receives a bizarre letter. It contains a £1000 note and a piece of paper with the words: ‘To console you for the loss of your husband.’
A few days later, Lord Montbarry’s brother, Henry Westwick, calls to see Agnes to break the news to her that Lord Montbarry has died of bronchitis in the Venetian palazzo where he had been staying.
Collins makes it seem inevitable that all the protagonists will meet again in Venice at some stage in the future. The palace where Lord Montbarry died is converted into an hotel and his brother, Henry, buys shares in it.
Later, friends of Agnes invite her on a trip to Italy with them and plan to visit Venice.
Henry’s sister and brother both separately visit the newly converted hotel that their brother has invested in and feel ill after staying in the best room, number 14, where they smell a foul odour. It turns out to be the room where Lord Montbarry died.
Events conspire to have Agnes allocated to that room when she arrives at the hotel with her party. The sinister Countess, who also happens to have returned to Venice is staying at the Hotel Danieli, but when she discovers that Agnes is staying at the newly converted palace she moves into the hotel.
Agnes then endures a night of horror in the room where Lord Montbarry died. At this point I am still wondering if this is a ghost story, or a tale about the supernatural.
There is no detective in the novel, but Lord Montbarry’s brother, Henry Westwick, sets out to find out what has taken place. He makes a discovery in the room above room number 14 that helps lead him to the truth.
A portrait of Wilkie Collins by John Everett Millais
This is the room in the old palace that had been occupied by Baron Rivar, the brother of the Countess, who had enjoyed making chemical experiments.
The sinister Countess has died during the night of a ruptured blood vessel in the brain, but she leaves an unfinished play that provides Henry with clues to the fate of the missing Italian courier.
My conclusion is that Wilkie Collins did write a crime story after all. There was the sudden death of Lord Montbarry, whose life was insured for £10000 pounds in favour of his widow, the sinister Countess. The insurance company investigates the death but can find nothing to suggest it was not natural causes. The Italian courier disappears mysteriously. The amateur detective, Henry Westwick, discovers the truth when he visits the room above number 14 and reads a half finished play by the Countess, which helps him finally discover what happened to his brother..
The Haunted Hotel has many of the ingredients of a crime novel and the truth is not revealed until the end of the novel in the tradition of the genre. I can definitely recommend it to crime fiction fans.
The Haunted Hotel is available from and
(The Millais portrait of Wilkie Collins hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London)
Sinister goings on in a remote
country house on the Suffolk coast
The gentleman sleuth Albert Campion
takes centre stage in Mystery Mile, the second novel by Margery Allingham to feature him as a character, which was first published in 1930.
Campion appeared in The Crime at
Black Dudley, published in 1929, as a minor character, although he played his
part, along with the other young guests at the country house party, when the
host’s uncle is found dead and a sinister gang of criminals take over the
building and hold them hostage.
The edition reissued by Vintage in 2015
But he is involved in the action
right from the beginning in Mystery Mile by saving the life of an American
judge on board a luxury liner crossing the Atlantic, seemingly by accident.
The judge, Crowdy Lobbett, is being
targeted by a major criminal, known as Simister, and his ruthless associates.
Several people in the judge’s circle have already died before he boards the
ship with his son and daughter to flee to England where he hopes to be safer.
But after a car drives into the hotel
where Judge Lobbett is staying in London, his son, Marlowe, tracks down Campion
to ask for his help.
Campion offers the family sanctuary
at a remote country house owned by two of his friends, a brother and sister,
Giles and Biddy Paget.
The house is in Mystery Mile, a small
village on the Suffolk coast, which is joined to the mainland only by a long
narrow road, making it almost an island and difficult for non residents to access.
But on their first night in the house
the local rector kills himself in a gruesome manner, leaving a note and some
mysterious clues for Campion and his friends.
Then the judge vanishes while
exploring the maze in the garden and his clothes are later found in the sea.
And Biddy disappears after leaving the house to walk the few yards to the
village post office.
After being tipped off by a criminal
friend of Campion’s that she is being held in a house in London, the young men
in the party launch a daring rescue bid.
There is plenty of fighting and some
nasty injuries, but they manage to rescue Biddy. It then becomes a race against
time to keep Simister and his gang of men at bay until they can pinpoint the identity
of the criminal mastermind himself and deal with him once and for all.
Peter Davison (right) played Campion in the BBC TV series, with Brian Glover (left) as Lugg
Very much a book of its time, Mystery
Mile reminded me a little of Agatha Christie’s second novel, The Secret
Adversary,which was published in 1922.
Margery, like Agatha, was dubbed a
Queen of Crime during the Golden Age of detective fiction. Her first two novels
both fall more into the suspense category than that of the cosy English crime
novel. But she never loses sight of the basic rules of the classic detective
story and keeps the reader guessing right to the end.
Margery’s setting for the old manor
house, Mystery Mile, a village that is practically an island, was based on
Mersea Island in Essex where she had spent time in her youth.
The story was adapted for television
by the BBC in the 1990s, as the final episode of the second series of Campion, which starred Peter Davison as Albert Campion, Brian Glover as his manservant Magersfontein Lugg and Andrew Burt as his policeman friend Stanislaus Oates.
The novel was reissued in 2015 by
Vintage, which is part of the Penguin Random House Group.
Although it is nearly 100 years since
Mystery Mile was written I think it is a gripping story and well worth reading.
Mystery Mile is available in a
variety of formats from or
Dorothy turns Lord Peter into a man
of action as well as words
The second Dorothy L Sayers novel
featuring amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey was nothing if not ambitious.
The second Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Dorothy L Sayers
The action took place in Yorkshire,
London, Paris and the US and the denouement sees a Duke being tried for murder
by his peers in the House of Lords.
This is a far cry from the country
house murder with a closed circle of suspects that was all the rage in 1926,
the year Clouds of Witness was published.
Reading it for the second time, many
years after I had first read the novel, I was more impressed with it than ever.
The plot is brilliant and intricately
worked out, considering that the action takes place over such a large canvas.
Denis Cathcart is found just outside
the conservatory in the early hours of the morning having been shot dead by a
bullet fired from the Duke’s revolver. The Duke is bending over his body when
Lady Mary arrives on the scene. An inquest into Cathcart’s death is later told
that Lady Mary exclaimed: ‘Oh God, Gerald, you’ve killed him!’
Needless to say, the Duke of Denver
is later arrested for the murder of his future brother in law. He refuses to
say why he was up and about at the time he discovered the body and Lady Mary
feigns illness to avoid have to talk to anyone about it at all.
Lord Peter and his manservant,
Bunter, waste no time in returning from their holiday in France to assist the
investigation and they set out to try to prove the Duke’s innocence.
And what could be more convenient
than Peter’s friend, Inspector Parker, being assigned to the case by Scotland
Yard?
Ian Carmichael played Lord Peter Wimsey in a BBC TV adaptation of Clouds of Witness
Lord Peter and Parker search the
grounds of the shooting lodge and quickly discover footprints belonging to
someone who was not a member of the official party, but who had clearly gained
access to the property. This makes it possible for someone from outside to have
been responsible for the murder. There are two married couples and four single
people staying in the lodge, but Lord Peter establishes that they are not the
only suspects, which is unusual for detective novels written at this time.
P D James, in her excellent book
Talking about Detective Fiction, says she was amused by the plan of the layout
of Riddlesdale Lodge that Dorothy provides for the reader, pointing out that
just one toilet and one bathroom shared by eight unrelated people must have
been rather inconvenient.
The action ranges across the
surrounding moorland, a farmhouse inhabited by a violent farmer and his
beautiful wife, and a nearby market town. Cathcart also had a life in Paris
that has to be investigated.
The Dowager Duchess of Denver arrives
at the lodge to deal with Lady Mary. We were introduced to her in Whose Body?
but in the second novel she is more entertaining than ever. She has long
soliloquies that move from subject to subject as one thought leads her
to another, but there is somehow a strange logic in what she says. She also
provides what she refers to as her ‘mother wit’ to aid the investigation.
The inquiries in Paris, events in
London and further adventures in Yorkshire bring Lord Peter and Parker closer
to the truth.
Sayers's second Lord Peter Wimsey novel saw her character become more an action man
But then the Duke’s trial in the
House of Lords, brilliantly described by Dorothy, gets under way as we get
nearer to the end of the book.
The crime writer Martin Edwards has
suggested that Clouds of Witness is the work of a novelist learning her craft
but that it displays the storytelling qualities that soon made her famous.
I agree with this in part. I feel
that Dorothy made large passages of the dialogue difficult to read by trying to
reproduce the Yorkshire accent in print when Lord Peter is interviewing locals
such as pub landlords and farmers.
She also allowed Lord Peter to
chatter too much at the beginning of the book when he and Parker are sleuthing
together. In real life the more ordinary detective inspector would probably
have begun to find his inane conversation rather trying.
But she allows Lord Peter to become
much more of a man of action than she did in her first novel, more along the
lines of Margery Allingham’s Campion than Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Lord Peter
is sucked into a bog while roaming over the moors at night and has to be
rescued by Bunter with the help of some local labourers and he is shot and
injured while chasing a suspect in London.
Near the end Lord Peter has to make a
last minute dash to New York to secure a final piece of evidence to exonerate
the Duke, which will reveal the truth about Cathcart’s death.
To be in time to present his evidence
at the trial in the House of Lords he has to make a daring and dangerous flight
back to London.
The Duke’s defence counsel, Sir Impey
Biggs, explains to the court how Lord Peter is making a transatlantic dash to
return before the end of the trial: ‘My Lords, at this moment this
all-important witness is cleaving the air high above the wide Atlantic. In this
wintry weather he is braving a peril which would appal any heart but his own
and that of the world-famous aviator whose help he has enlisted, so that no
moment may be lost in freeing his noble brother from this terrible charge. My
lords, the barometer is falling.’
Lord Peter’s fictional flight was
described in a novel published in 1926, a year before Charles Lindbergh was to
achieve the same feat in reality.
The amateur detective arrives at the
House of Lords looking ‘a very grubby and oily figure’ and presents the vital
evidence that will exonerate his brother.
He also provides a satisfying
conclusion to the mystery for the reader, which is one of the key ingredients
of any crime novel.
Clouds of Witness is available in a
variety of formats from or
Talented New Zealander contributed to art, the theatre and crime writing
Ngaio Marsh pictured in 1935, early in her writing career
One of the four Queens of Crime during the Golden Age of detective fiction, Ngaio Marsh, died on this day – 18 February – in 1982 in her native New Zealand.
Her 32nd and final crime novel, Light Thickens, was completed only a few weeks before her death. The story revolves around one of her greatest theatrical passions, Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth.
Ngaio began writing detective novels in 1931 after moving to London to start up an interior decorating business. She has written that the idea for her first crime novel, A Man Lay Dead, came to her when she was living in a basement flat off Sloane Square.
In the preface to my copy of an omnibus edition of her first three novels - A Man Lay Dead, Enter a Murderer and The Nursing Home Murder - Ngaio Marsh describes how she came up with the character of Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn.
It was a wet Saturday afternoon and she had been reading a detective story borrowed from a library, although she says she couldn’t remember whether it was a Christie or a Sayers. By four o’clock, as the afternoon became darker and the rain was still coming down relentlessly, she had finished it. She wondered whether she could write something similar and braved the rain to go to a stationer’s shop across the street where she bought six exercise books, a pencil and a pencil sharpener.
She sat down to write what was to be the first of a series of 32 crime novels featuring the gentleman detective Roderick Alleyn.
Along with Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers she was to dominate the genre of crime fiction for the next 50 years with her novels and numerous short stories.
With Marsh, Margery Allingham (left), Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers were the Queens of Crime
All her novels feature Alleyn, who works for the Metropolitan Police in London even though he is the younger brother of a baronet, and several are set in the world of the theatre, which Ngaio knew well as an actress, director and playwright.
After leaving school she had studied painting before joining a touring theatre company. She became a member of an art association in New Zealand and continued to exhibit her paintings with them from the 1920s onwards.
Her hero detective Alleyn was named after an Elizabethan actor, Edward Alleyn, and Ngaio allows him to meet and fall in love with an artist, Agatha Troy, in her 1938 novel, Artists in Crime.
She directed many productions of Shakespeare’s plays in New Zealand and Australia and the 430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of Canterbury is named in her honour.
Patrick Malahide (centre) starred in a BBC adaptation of Marsh's Alleyn novels
In 1948 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services in connection with drama and literature in New Zealand. She became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the arts in the 1966 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Ngaio’s autobiography, Black Beech and Honeydew was published in 1965. She was inducted into the Detection Club in 1974 and received the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement as a detective novelist from the Mystery Writers of America in 1978.
Ngaio died in her home town of Christchurch and was buried at the Church of the Holy Innocents, Mount Peel.
The Ngaio Marsh Award is given annually to the writer of the best New Zealand mystery, crime or thriller novel. Her home in Christchurch is now a museum and displays her collection of antiques. On her desk lies a fountain pen filled with green ink, which was her long time writing tool.
Ngaio Marsh’s 32 crime novels are available in a variety of formats. You can find many of them at: or
Roman
Catholic Monsignor lays down the ‘fair play’ rules for crime writers
Ronald Knox was a priest as well as a crime writer
Ronald
Knox, the crime writer most remembered for writing the Ten Commandments of
Detective Fiction, was born on this day - 17 February - in 1888 in the village of Kibworth Harcourt in
Leicestershire.
Knox
became a Roman Catholic priest and produced the Knox Bible, translating the
Latin Vulgate bible into English using Hebrew and Greek sources. He was also a
theologian, satirical writer and radio broadcaster.
The son
of a Church of England clergyman who became a bishop, Knox was educated at Eton
and Balliol College, Oxford.
He was
ordained an Anglican priest and appointed chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford.
During World War 1 he served in military intelligence.
When Knox
converted to Roman Catholicism, his father cut him out of his will. Knox
explained his conversion, which was partly influenced by the crime writer G K
Chesterton, by writing two books about it. When G K Chesterton also became a
Catholic he said he had been partly influenced by Ronald Knox.
After
Knox became a Catholic priest, he wrote and broadcast about Christianity and
other subjects. He became a Roman Catholic chaplain at Oxford University in
1926 and in 1936 was elevated to the title of Monsignor. He began writing
classic detective stories while a chaplain at Oxford.
This was
during what is now referred to as the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in the
1920s and 1930s and Knox was one of the founding members of the Detection Club.
A picture taken at a 1932 meeting of the Detection Club, when G K Chesterton was president
This
elite club was formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers that
included Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and many other famous authors.
Anthony Berkeley was instrumental in setting up the club and the first
president was G K Chesterton.
The
members of the Detection Club agreed to adhere to Knox’s Commandments in their
writing to give the reader a fair chance of guessing who was the guilty party.
These
‘fair play’ rules were summarised by Knox in the preface to Best Detective
Stories 1928-29, which he edited.
Knox’s
Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are as follows:
1. The
criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be
anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
2. All
supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
3. Not
more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
4. No
hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a
long scientific explanation at the end.
5. No
Chinaman must figure in the story.
6. No
accident must ever help the detective, nor must he have an unaccountable
intuition which proves to be right.
7. The
detective himself must not commit the crime.
8. The
detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.
9. The
sidekick of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any
thoughts which pass through his mind, his intelligence must be slightly, but
very slightly, below that of the average reader.
10. Twin
brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly
prepared for them.
According
to Knox, a detective story ‘must have as its main interest the unravelling of a
mystery, a mystery whose elements are clearly presented to the reader at an
early stage in the proceedings, and whose nature is such as to arouse
curiosity, a curiosity, which is gratified at the end.’
The Murder Room's edition of Knox's first detective novel
Knox was
a prolific satirical writer and wrote many essays and books about religion.
He also
wrote some crime short stories and six detective novels: The Viaduct Murder
(1926), The Three Taps (1927), The Footsteps at the Lock (1928), The Body in
the Silo (1933), Still Dead (1934), Double Cross Purposes (1937).
Paperback editions of all six detective novels were published by the former Orion imprint The Murder Room in 2013 and are still available from AmazonandWaterstones.
He also
contributed to three collaboration works by the Detection Club; Behind the
Screen (1930), The Floating Admiral (1931) and Six Against the Yard (1936).
