![]() There are several of her novels nodding to the play – in Final Curtain (1947), her character Troy paints a past his glory actor as Macbeth in Surfeit of Lampreys (1940), the character of Lady Macbeth serves as a clue and in her final novel, Light Thickens (1982) she basically stages Macbeth as the major part of the plot. ![]() ![]() She especially, and naturally, loved Shakespeare and specifically Macbeth. The other two threads that run through her books are theater – a lifelong passion for Marsh, who also worked as a producer, and was instrumental in bringing travelling theater companies to New Zealand. ![]() New Zealand often figures in her novels, as does a respect for the Native Maori culture. She was born in New Zealand, and her name, Ngaio, is a Maori word for a flowering tree. In all of her books, there are certain threads that hold constant, or that she dips back to. I’ve read some of her books so many times I almost know them verbatim. I love Christie, Sayers and Allingham, but Marsh is the favorite of my heart. Christie’s Poirot and Marple, Sayers’ Peter Wimsey, Allingham’s Albert Campion and Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn are some of the best known British detectives ever created. Along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham, they were the original Queens of Crime, reshaping the puzzle based mystery and adding the bonus of continuing characters readers grew to love. ![]() Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982), was one of the four cornerstones of British Crime fiction in the 30’s and 40’s, and that is reason enough to love her. ![]()
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