What do you think?
Rate this book
Photo-Finish / Light Thickens / Black Beech and Honeydew
Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime's first book, the final volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries.
784 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
28 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Ngaio Marsh
198 books821 followersDame 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
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
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 20, 2017
I'm currently reading Light Thickens. This book also contains Photo Finish and Black Beech & Honeydew, as well as a bonus story "Morepork". I've read the two Inspector Alleyn books several times before, but the autobiography and the short story will be new, when I get around to them. I love the Alleyn books, so no doubt this will get 5 stars, even though I haven't finished reading all the stories.
Light Thickens I'd read before, but it was still fascinating. The way she builds the suspense all through the rehearsal period, up to the opening night is great. Of course Inspector Alleyn is in the audience, and of course he solves the case. The child actor from the cast and director Peregrine Jay's sons also get involved a little bit. This is a sort of sequel to Death at the Dolphin, which was where Perry initially took over management of the Dolphin Theater and had his first play there. Several references to that book are made here, although it probably isn't necessary to have read it (however, it may make you WANT to read it.)
Photo Finish I had NOT read before, although I thought I had. It revolves around an egotistical singer, La Sommita, who invites Troy to come and paint her portrait; at the same time they invite Alleyn in hopes he will help with a mysterious photographer who has been taking unflattering pictures of her and selling them. They go to an island off New Zealand where Sommita's lover has a huge mansion which is accessible only by launch or helicopter; so they are cut off when a huge storm arises. When the murder occurs, Alleyn has to take over until the NZ police can be contacted and arrive. Not as good as Light Thickens, but it still held my interest throughout.
The autobiography covers Ngaio Marsh's childhood and girlhood in New Zealand as well as after she goes to England and then back to NZ, and is also very interesting. There is a lot of detail about the plays she directed and the people she met thereby, but not a lot about the books, other than a few mentions that she was writing one or another. I would have liked to read more about them, but she concentrates on her theatrical endeavors and her many travels. The book also contains a number of photographs of her and many of the people she mentions.
Morepork is a short story - also about a murder, but not involving Alleyn. A group of campers in New Zealand find the body of one of them, and set up a sort of informal coroner's jury to decide what to do. Also very good, albeit short.
Light Thickens I'd read before, but it was still fascinating. The way she builds the suspense all through the rehearsal period, up to the opening night is great. Of course Inspector Alleyn is in the audience, and of course he solves the case. The child actor from the cast and director Peregrine Jay's sons also get involved a little bit. This is a sort of sequel to Death at the Dolphin, which was where Perry initially took over management of the Dolphin Theater and had his first play there. Several references to that book are made here, although it probably isn't necessary to have read it (however, it may make you WANT to read it.)
Photo Finish I had NOT read before, although I thought I had. It revolves around an egotistical singer, La Sommita, who invites Troy to come and paint her portrait; at the same time they invite Alleyn in hopes he will help with a mysterious photographer who has been taking unflattering pictures of her and selling them. They go to an island off New Zealand where Sommita's lover has a huge mansion which is accessible only by launch or helicopter; so they are cut off when a huge storm arises. When the murder occurs, Alleyn has to take over until the NZ police can be contacted and arrive. Not as good as Light Thickens, but it still held my interest throughout.
The autobiography covers Ngaio Marsh's childhood and girlhood in New Zealand as well as after she goes to England and then back to NZ, and is also very interesting. There is a lot of detail about the plays she directed and the people she met thereby, but not a lot about the books, other than a few mentions that she was writing one or another. I would have liked to read more about them, but she concentrates on her theatrical endeavors and her many travels. The book also contains a number of photographs of her and many of the people she mentions.
Morepork is a short story - also about a murder, but not involving Alleyn. A group of campers in New Zealand find the body of one of them, and set up a sort of informal coroner's jury to decide what to do. Also very good, albeit short.
September 27, 2020
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (The Tempest, William Shakespeare)
Given that the last novel Ngaio Marsh wrote, Light Thickens, revolves around a production of Macbeth, it would have been good to quote from that, but the Tempest was the last play written entirely by Shakespeare it makes sense to use it.
This omnibus contains the last two books written by Marsh, an autobiography and a short story. It is perhaps apt for the last two books that the first book is set in New Zealand and the second returns to the theatre, and returns to the Dolphin Theatre, two things that recur throughout Ngaio Marsh's books. Both are good books, I preferred the second to the first, I don't know New Zealand and so the background doesn't mean anything to me and the plot felt a bit too operatic to be completely plausible, while being fun.
The autobiography is very well written but it left me wanting more information. There are s many aspects of her life that just don't get a mention, or that Ngaio Marsh has deliberately made hazy. I think I need to read a biography!
And that's it, every crime novel has been read, including the one "completed" by Stella Duffy. Most, if not all, of the short stories, at least those included in the 11 omnibuses, similarly read. It's been interesting seeing how the writing improved from the first novel A Man lay Dead in 1934 to the last Light Thickens in 1982. And how in those 48 years, despite marrying Troy and having a son, Alleyn doesn't change much at all!
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (The Tempest, William Shakespeare)
Given that the last novel Ngaio Marsh wrote, Light Thickens, revolves around a production of Macbeth, it would have been good to quote from that, but the Tempest was the last play written entirely by Shakespeare it makes sense to use it.
This omnibus contains the last two books written by Marsh, an autobiography and a short story. It is perhaps apt for the last two books that the first book is set in New Zealand and the second returns to the theatre, and returns to the Dolphin Theatre, two things that recur throughout Ngaio Marsh's books. Both are good books, I preferred the second to the first, I don't know New Zealand and so the background doesn't mean anything to me and the plot felt a bit too operatic to be completely plausible, while being fun.
The autobiography is very well written but it left me wanting more information. There are s many aspects of her life that just don't get a mention, or that Ngaio Marsh has deliberately made hazy. I think I need to read a biography!
And that's it, every crime novel has been read, including the one "completed" by Stella Duffy. Most, if not all, of the short stories, at least those included in the 11 omnibuses, similarly read. It's been interesting seeing how the writing improved from the first novel A Man lay Dead in 1934 to the last Light Thickens in 1982. And how in those 48 years, despite marrying Troy and having a son, Alleyn doesn't change much at all!
September 3, 2020
It does feel a little odd having two detective novels followed by an autobiography. It's not often in my experience that an omnibus spans genres, let alone the fiction/non-fiction divide.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews