Author(s): Joanne Drayton

NZ History/Society

While Ngaio Marsh had a larger than life public persona, she was fiercely protective of her private life. No one knows better how to cover tracks with red herrings and remove incriminating evidence than a crime fiction writer. This fascinating biography of Ngaio Marsh pieces together both the public and private Marsh in a way that is as riveting as a crime novel. Through Marsh's writing and her theatre productions and publications, Joanne Drayton assembles the peices to the puzzle that is Ngaio Marsh. Proving that life can be as thrilling as fiction. Marsh wrote her fist detective novel in a London flat in the depths of the 1930's Depression. In 'A Man Lay Dead' she broght to life dectective Inspector Roderick Alleyn. through thirty-two novels he would establish himself as one of the great super-sleuths, and Marsh as one of four Queens of Godlen Age dectitive fiction writing, alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham.