Week 7: Golden Age III Ngaio Marsh Death in a White Tie (1938)

Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982) Born in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her name comes from a Māori word for a flowering tree/ an insect. She was the only child of Rose and Henry Marsh (a bank clerk). Ngaio described the family as ‘have-nots’. She was educated at St Margaret’s College (a girls’ school) and then studied painting at the Canterbury College School of Art. She became a member of The Group, an art association based in Christchurch. She then worked as an actress, touring New Zealand with a theatre company. From 1928 onwards, she divided her time between the UK and NZ. From 1928-32 she operated an interior decorating business in Knightsbridge. Between 1934-82 she published 32 novels, featuring her gentleman detective Roderick Alleyn (named after the Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn). Many of the stories drew on Marsh’s love of the theatre and painting. Most are set in England, but four take place in NZ, where Alleyn is either seconded or on holiday. Marsh was heavily involved with the New Zealand theatre scene, producing and directing many Shakespearean plays. In 1948, she was given an OBE for services to NZ theatre. In 1966 she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, also for services to theatre in NZ. She never married and had no children. In 1982, she died in Christchurch.

Death in a White Tie (1938) Seventh novel to feature Roderick Alleyn. A town house murder, set during ‘the season’. Distinctive London setting – geography of the city, the urban fog, murder in a taxi. Closed circle of characters, largely comprising the upper classes and their servants. Range of crimes including: blackmail, murder, gambling. Sensational secrets – reference to Lady Audley’s Secret – Paddy O’Brien’s first wife was in an asylum, Bridget is an illegitimate child. Bulk of the narrative is structured around interviews with the suspects. Murderous doctor: Sir Daniel Davidson. Personal case – Alleyn has asked for Bunchy’s help in investigating the blackmail; he feels responsible for Bunchy’s death; he moves in the same social circle as the suspects. Romantic subplot between Alleyn and the artist, Agatha Troy.

Critical Reception: Plot ‘If you like your murders cheerfully treated, with no distracting atmosphere, read “Death in a White Tie” […] which has clues and detection in perfect order and is also a lively picture of the London season.’ - ‘Modes in Murder’, Country Life, 24 December 1938, pp. 638-9 (p. 638).

Critical Reception: Plot ‘Her solutions can be very contrived […] but other solutions can be oversimple […] Marsh’s contexts, especially to do with theatre and art, are particularly effective and helped substantially towards her long-lasting success.’ - Stephen Knight, Crime Fiction Since 1800: Death, Detection, Diversity, 2nd edn (New York: Palgrave, 2010), p. 102.

Critical Reception: Class ‘In the British school, the detectives of Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, and Michael Innes are all upper-class establishment figures, and they are all deeply implicated in the social order that they work to protect.’ - John Scraggs, Crime Fiction (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2005), pp. 48-9.

Critical Reception: Class ‘Marsh unconsciously created a transitional figure. [Alleyn] has the aristocratic background; the personal charm, fastidiousness, and handsomeness; and the bookish facetiousness of the gentleman-detective of the “between-the-wars” school of British detective fiction. But he is also a policeman, using a team of subordinates in “routine” police investigation, and in this respect he looks forward to the later procedural novels, for there is more police routine in the early novels than in any other group of British detective novels of the 1930s.’ - Earl F. Bargainnier, ‘Ngaio Marsh’, in 10 Women of Mystery (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Press, 1981), p. 94.