Ngaio Marsh: BBC Radio Crime Collection

by Ngaio Marsh, Jeremy Clyde (Narrator), Stephen Thorne (Narrator)

A collection of the BBC’s dramatisations of Ngaio Marsh’s most famous sleuth: Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn.

This collection includes the following works by Ngaio Marsh:

A Man Lay Dead - The gentleman detective tackles a country house party murder.

A Surfeit of Lampreys - Gentleman sleuth Inspector Alleyn probes a grisly death of the head of a spendthrift aristocratic family.

Opening Night - When a leading actor is found gassed in his dressing room, it looks like suicide. But it transpires he was so detested that everyone had a motive for his murder.

When In Rome - 1970s Rome. Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn is incognito and on the trail of a vast drugs syndicate - and some exceptionally unsavoury blackmail. But he hasn't reckoned on murder.

4 pages, Audible Audio

Published December 19, 2019

About the author

Dame Ngaio Marsh, born Edith Ngaio Marsh, was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. There is some uncertainty over her birth date as her father neglected to register her birth until 1900, but she was born in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand.

Of all the "Great Ladies" of the English mystery's golden age, including Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh alone survived to publish in the 1980s. Over a fifty-year span, from 1932 to 1982, Marsh wrote thirty-two classic English detective novels, which gained international acclaim. She did not always see herself as a writer, but first planned a career as a painter.

Marsh's first novel, A MAN LAY DEAD (1934), which she wrote in London in 1931-32, introduced the detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn: a combination of Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey and a realistically depicted police official at work. Throughout the 1930s Marsh painted occasionally, wrote plays for local repertory societies in New Zealand, and published detective novels. In 1937 Marsh went to England for a period. Before going back to her home country, she spent six months travelling about Europe.

All her novels feature British CID detective Roderick Alleyn. Several novels feature Marsh's other loves, the theatre and painting. A number are set around theatrical productions (Enter a Murderer, Vintage Murder, Overture to Death, Opening Night, Death at the Dolphin, and Light Thickens), and two others are about actors off stage (Final Curtain and False Scent). Her short story "'I Can Find My Way Out" is also set around a theatrical production and is the earlier "Jupiter case" referred to in Opening Night. Alleyn marries a painter, Agatha Troy, whom he meets during an investigation (Artists in Crime), and who features in several later novels.

Series:
* Roderick Alleyn

Reviews

[cardulelia carduelis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty generic stories, with resolutions you can't easily see coming because you don't have all the info - or it's blindingly obvious (as is the case in the last two stories).
The audiobook has a full cast with sound effects - which makes it a great listen.

I don't think I'll pick up Ngaio Marsh again but if you're looking for some decent, generic, filler - give it a go!

[Kerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't usually care for audio books, but Audible has a fantastic collection of radio dramatizations so it's like watching on TV (without, obviously, the picture) and they tend to keep my attention very well. This is a solid collection of Inspector Alleyn stories. Opening Night was probably my favorite of this collection, but I enjoyed them all.

[MELANIE · Rating 5 out of 5]

My commuting time was drastically reduced while I was listening to these books. I was so fascinated with the storylines and the acting that I nearly missed my stop. Jeremy Clyde's performance is outstanding and commanding, as usual. It's a galloping listen through some of Marsh's more famous works

[JulieAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed listening to the crime collection on Audible.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back on my Ngaio Marsh bullshit. These are a set of speedy adaptations but the cast is great and I loved listening.