Murder at the Theatre

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 99, 16 May 1941, Page 5

Murder at the Theatre

GAIO MARSH has achieved recognition and popularity, not only in England and the United States and indeed all English-speaking countries, but she has been translated into Dutch, Swedish, Italian and Polish, So if you learn to like her books you will be only one of a great company ‘of her admirers throughout the world. In her chief char-

acter, Roderick Alleyn, Ngaio Marsh departs from the tradition of the amateur detective. Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn, of New Scotland Yard, is very much a professional. Yet he is by no means the stereotyped detective of fiction. He is a real person, and a very likeable one, His "Dr. Watson" appears in several books as Nigel Bathgate, a young journ-

alist with plenty of courage, but without the obnoxious "push" that his calling sometimes induces. . .. You will find that several of Ngaio Marsh’s plots have their setting in the theatre. A good setting, too; for.the dark shadows and bulky scenery, the passage-ways and ladders and ropes of that strange land behind the scenes lend themselves to the murderer’s purpose; but on the other hand the place is well peopled with members of the cast, stagehands and so on; so that there is opportunity here for a cleverly-contrived plot. Ngaio Marsh’s descriptions of theatrical life are authentic, for she toured with the Allan Wilkie company whose presentations of Shakespeare will be recalled by many of you.

You will find that one book Vintage Murder is dedicated to "Allan Wilkie and Frediswyde Hunter Watts in memory of a tour in New Zealand." A very fitting book to dedicate to them, too, for the story concerns a murder that took place while an English company was touring in New Zealand.-("A Few minutes with Women Novelists: Some More Writers of Detective Fiction,’ by Margaret Johnston, 2YA, April 5.)