THE LAMPREYS OF MS MARSH

Book Tuesday is hosted by The Witch and today I’d like to feature a distinguished New Zealand writer of crime and detective fiction, Ngaio Marsh. If you like Agatha Christie’s novels, you’ll also like Ngaio Marsh (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nmarsh.htm). She was born April 23rd , 1895? and died February 18th, 1982. There is some uncertainty over her birth date as her father neglected to register her birth until 1900. She was an author and theatre director who wrote thirty-two novels in total.

All of her novels featured her brilliant detective, Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Inspector Alleyn was assisted by Inspector Fox, Nigel Bathgate, and later his wife Agatha Troy, a famous artist. Ngaio Marsh used her knowledge and experience of the theatre in many of the novels, particularly in one of her best books “Opening Night” (1951). The majority of titles appeared first in the UK but there are thirteen titles, which appeared first in the US, so there are also a few alternate titles. As she also studied art, artists make frequent appearances in her novels.

As a kind of hobby and with no real hope of publication she wrote her first novel, “A Man Lay Dead” (1934), scribbling it down with a lead pencil in twopenny exercise books. She left this story with an agent, and was astonished to learn some six months later, that a publisher had been found. Most of her writing was done at her home in New Zealand (now a museum and well worth a visit if you ever go to Christchurch, a lovely city on the South Island of New Zealand!).

One of Ngaio Marsh's most popular novels is “Surfeit of Lampreys” (also known as “Death of A Peer” in the USA, published 1940/41). The novel begins when a young New Zealander’s first contact with the English gentry is the body of Lord Wutherford (dispatched into the next world with a meat skewer through his eye!). The Lamprey family had lots of charm but have unfortunately fallen short of cash. Their eccentricity and peculiar lifestyle in which they revelled required a lot of money. The rich but awful Uncle Gabriel, Lord Wutherford, often visited (but he was always such a bore) and the double and triple charades, with which they would entertain their guests left him rather bemused. The Lampreys thought if they were nice to rich Uncle Gabriel, he would provide them with some funds, yet again… Unfortunately, Uncle Gabriel met a very nasty end. Chief Inspector Alleyn of course comes into the scene and has to deduce which Lamprey killed him...

If you are into good detective fiction, full of gruesome murders, the necessary comedic relief, enjoyable characters, involving plot, amusing conversation, wonderful style and faultless detection, then Ngaio Marsh is the woman for you.

PS: A lamprey is a jawless fish armed with a vicious toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. While lampreys are well known for those species which bore into the flesh of other fish to suck their blood, these species make up the minority. Nevertheless the name Ms Marsh chose for the murderous Lamprey clan is quite apt you must admit…