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| Illustrated endpapers from Scales of Justice (1955) |
She is always described as one of the "Queens of Crime", the women writers who dominated the golden age of crime writing (says Wikipedia) along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Margery Allingham. She studied painting before becoming an actress and later a producer and director in the theatre. So it's no surprise that one of her recurring characters is Agatha Troy RA, a very celebrated artist, later Mrs Roderick Alleyn, and a number of the books have to a greater or lesser extent, a theatrical background.
There are 32 Alleyn novels published between 1934 to 1982. And they seem to be set in the year they were written which in the end I think is rather a mistake. Because Roderick Alleyn is 43 in Death at the Bar (published 1940 but obviously written before WWII) and Fox is older still; probably 50. So how old can they be in the final book Light Thickens (1982)? Far too old to be employed by Scotland Yard, that's for certain.
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| Plan of the flats in Surfeit of Lampreys (1941) |
If you read the books simply as whodunnits most of them are a great read with very carefully plotted murders and squadrons of suspicious characters just queueing up to be suspected. I've now read all the books several times (except one which I couldn't finish a second time), and some more than ten times so I nearly always remember who dunnit. But the plots are mostly such fun that it's worthwhile reading the books again even if you know what's going to happen.
Alleyn does not emerge fully formed. In A Man Lay Dead (1934) he acts completely unlike his later self and recruits the help not only of Nigel Bathgate, a young journalist (who somewhat improbably becomes his "Watson" in several books), but also Miss Angela North (later Mrs Bathgate) who burgles a friend's flat to assist Alleyn's enquiries. Basically A Man Lay Dead is a country house murder story, but there's a weird Russian anarchist sub-plot which doesn't really seem to work. But Russian anarchists were popular in those days. Sadly we never meet Miss Angela again. Sadly because she is strikingly intelligent and a really fun character. But of course, she is a young woman, soon married, and of course condemned to be nothing but a mother because it was the 1930s.
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The Ball in Death in a White Tie (1938) takes place in this house: how can there be windows on the left side of the ground and first floor if the Green Boudoir is shown in the correct place? What shape is this building? Does this building sit around a large courtyard? Is the Green Boudoir a strange flying freehold perhaps? |
I should say though, that if you don't enjoy the theatre, some of these books are not for you. After reading Light Thickens I felt I could take quite a tough exam on Macbeth and a couple of the others are full of stage directions and deal in quite obsessive detail with plays that, frankly, I'm glad I don't have to sit through; Opening Night for example features a play I would hate. But I think it is very much of its time. There's also a great deal of detail about painting in Artists in Crime (where Alleyn meets Troy for the first time), Final Curtain where Troy is the leading character, and a couple of the other books.
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| Illustrated endpapers from Clutch of Constables (1968) |
That's all very fine, all writers write their characters in their own way, but then you get far too many "middle aged" women who act strangely, obsessively, avidly, really quite unpleasantly or even a little bit madly (anyone for black magic?) and this is all put down to the "time of life" (again, not in so many words). Because obviously all women go a bit bonkers in middle age. Hush! whisper it: could this be something to do with the menopause? Considering that Ngaio Marsh was a woman I find myself puzzled as much as offended by this attitude. She never married, and it seems had close relationships only with women so.... Perhaps, though, she went through a terrible menopause herself and genuinely thought it normal for women to behave abnormally in their forties or fifties.
Unfortunately if you read the books carefully, you'll notice that they are either written with a distinct lack of attention to detail, or were very badly edited. In Surfeit of Lampreys, the heroine, Robin has a bedroom curtained off from the hall; more than once someone knocks on her bedroom door (see above for the plan). In the same book we are told that Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Violet will be arriving at 6 on Friday evening. Ten pages later when they do arrive we are told the family was only expecting Uncle Gabriel and they are all quite disconcerted to see Aunt Violet. Later Aunt Kit goes to visit the Jewish pawn broker at his home on the same Friday evening (perhaps Ngaio Marsh really didn't realise how improbable that was because, obviously, the Sabbath), and the following day Lord Charles goes to discuss matters with his bank manager. On a Saturday afternoon? I'm not sure that would happen.
In Death at the Bar we are told the Plume of Feathers pub has four guest rooms. But at the start of the book five people are staying there, and by the end there are six. In the same book the victim is stabbed with a dart in his third finger, or two pages later, in his middle finger.
I confess I never noticed any discrepancies when I first read these books, I suppose because I was reading to find out who the murderer was. But I do feel some of them are a little sloppy. You're probably thinking "Wow! she's picky", but these things are important, especially if you enjoy rereading books.
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| This is the site plan for Black as He's Painted (1974) which looks very like Ennismore Gardens and the surrounding streets (which feature a hole in the wall) in Knightsbridge. Which is to say, not far from Harrods and the Brompton Oratory. |
I also enjoy the UK TV versions of some of the books. They're nicely made TV shows packed with period detail. However, unfortunately for a fan like me, the producers decided to add in extra and unnecessary chunks of plot that aren't in the books. They also decided to insert Troy into stories she shouldn't be in; Troy doesn't feature in every book, and they moved the setting of Dead Water from Cornwall to a Scottish Island. Worst of all, in the books Alleyn affectionately calls Inspector Fox "Foxkin" and "Brer Fox". In the TV version he calls him "Brer". Why make this silly change? It's really annoying to anyone who has read and loved the books.
I haven't seen the New Zealand adaptations. There are three stories set in New Zealand and one in London featuring a New Zealand born actress. I don't think these programmes have ever been shown in the UK, or available on DVD here. What a pity.
Nearly all the books are available at very reasonable prices from second hand book dealers so there's nothing to stop you giving them a go. I recently replaced all my paperbacks with hardbacks and really didn't spend a lot of money.
