The Ngaio Marsh Collection (1) - A Man Lay Dead / Enter a Murderer / The Nursing Home Murder [Paperback]

Ngaio (it's a Maori name, possibly pronounced "nay -o") Marsh had her first book "A Man Lay Dead" published in 1934 and continued writing whodunnits (32 in all) right up to the year before she died, in 1982.

That's a little less than half the output of Agatha Christie, but then Ms Marsh had only one detective, and in any case had a "day job" in live theatre, as actress and producer.

Combine this with the fact that her stories frequently followed very similar patterns (not so obvious, perhaps, if you don't read all 32, one straight after the other, as I just did), leads me to dispute the claim that Ngaio Marsh was the "Empress" in the golden era of detective fiction. The equal of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers - the "Queens" of detective fiction? Maybe, though personally I'd award the race to Christie, by at least a head.

Still (in case you thought this was going to be a negative review), when you're in that kind of company even coming equal second is a pretty outstanding achievement.

And when you can get three books for almost as little as the previous price of one, this has to be "an offer no true whodunnit fan can refuse"!

In this first book we get the first three Roderick Alleyn mysteries, starting with "A Man Lay Dead".

A big plus for many readers must be the setting, an old-fashioned house party where the murderer strikes and the detective hero arrives within the first 50 pages. There are as many illicit relationships as there are in any edition of "Midsommer Murder", and by introducing a newspaper reporter (Nigel Bathgate) into the story who is both a guest at the houseparty and a friend of the detective, Marsh achieves the trick of giving us multiple perspectives on the action without having to go all dissociated on us.

Although this is one of the "short" books (just slightly longer than the average Agatha Christie), the clever plotting and the genuine (but not outrageous) twist at the end already indicate a long and successful career in writing.

In the second book, Enter a Murderer (1935), we have a play about a murder as the background for a "real life" homicide and other dubious activities. And once again, the victim has become so loathsome by the time they die that you feel like cheering when the dirty deed is done.

Marsh's style tends to go for close-ups rather than car chases and the like, though on this occasion one of theatre people leads the police on a wild goose chase - and pays the ultimate price - before the real killer is revealed. All of which adds up to another neatly presented classic whodunnit of the pre-war period.

The third outing for Alleyn, Fox and Bathgate - The Nursing Home Murder (1935) - has a passing similarity to the Alastair Sim film "Green for Danger", taking place in the claustrophobic world of a nursing home where the Home Secretary is forced to become a patient when he is struck down by peritonities. It proves to be his penultimate resting place. But whodunnit? Was it a member of one of the groups who have threatened the Home sEcretary's life. Or is the murderer literally "closer to the home"?

Marsh makes a good job of keeping up the tension balancing the small group of suspects directly connected with the dead man against the outside threat. And if the solution to the case isn't entirely unexpected, it does all end in a very satisfying 1930s style.

If you've not read any of Marsh's books before, get this trio. It could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Three who dunnit stories complied into one book with an extra tale at the end. Excellent way of presenting the tales three stories in one book. easy to read and store, Highly recommend this item

In my youth I was an avid reader, and spent many happy hours routing round jumble sales for hardbacks and paperbacks to feed my addiction. From a relatively early age I became a fan of the mystery murder genre and grew up on a diet of Christie and Marsh, as these were so often the staple offerings on sale. In my early years I wasn't really conscious of any dissimilarity between the two authors and enjoyed them equally, although Christie was more prolific. Over the years my love of Christie has never really gone away, with several of her titles becoming firm favourites and revisited often over the years. Ngaoi Marsh, for me, seemed to fade from view and memory until I came across the new collection and I was pleased to be given the chance to enjoy her stories all over again. Let me say from the start that I think labelling her the' Empress among the crime queens' is just marketing hype. With no disrespect to the author, I just don't think she excels beyond Christie or Sayers, but she does write a good whodunit and can serve up a decently murderous tale even if the first 3 on offer in collection 1 do seem to follow a formula. Now down to the nitty gritty - it is important to remember that these were the first 3 Alleyn mysteries that she wrote, so you have to allow for the fact that her style developed as her skill progressed, but these early stories are fairly `unfrilly'. She gets the job done and doesn't hang around worrying too much about characterisation, it's all about the detection. In `A Man Lay Dead' a country house weekend goes pear-shaped when a parlour game of `murder in the dark' produces an actual corpse. In `Enter a Murderer' an actor is shot dead during the performance of a play when the prop gun has been loaded with real bullets. In a `Nursing Home Murder' an eminent politician dies mysteriously after an emergency surgical operation during which he was surrounded by some of his deadliest enemies. The formula is very simple. You are introduced to a motley crew of suspects. The crime happens. Alleyn of the Yard is called in. The suspects are all cross-examined and eventually he arrives at his conclusion. Job done. It is all very straight forward and efficient, but it does lack some depth. You never really get to engage with the victim or suspects and consequently it all feels a bit mechanical. Another of my pet peeves, and this also goes for Christie too, is that I am not really a great fan of the detectives they create. I never really warmed to Hercule Poirot and Capt Hastings (not on paper at least, the ITV series finally managed to bring these characters to life for me), which seemed to be an attempt to emulate the famous Holmes/Watson partnership. Much as I love and revere Agatha Christie for her plots, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple always felt a bit artificial to me. In the same way, Alleyn may possess some fine qualities (he doesn't suffer fools gladly), but chooses (unwisely) the unlikeable Nigel Bathgate to be his Watson. For me this seems all wrong and makes me question Alleyn's judgement. Why on earth would a detective invite a journalist to be privy to the questioning of the suspects, especially when on at least 2 occasions the journalist has personal connections to the case and very strong opinions on the matter. I simply don't understand it. Bathgate brings nothing to the story and sidelines the efficient Detective Inspector Fox (who Alleyn, rather unconvincingly, calls `Foxkin'). In conclusion, although her early attempts leave a bit to be desired, these are still fairly serviceable whodunits, although I'm not sure I will ever be revisiting these again.