The Ngaio Marsh Collection, Book 8: The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries

Description

Title: Hand in Glove / Dead Water / Death at the Dolphin (The Ngaio Marsh Collection, Book 8)
Author: Ngaio Marsh
Publisher: HarperCollins (Diamond Anniversary Collection), London, 2009
Format: Paperback
Condition: As new, slight discolouration to pages

Out of print. Three complete novels plus bonus story. 640 pages.

Description:

Three Inspector Alleyn mysteries from one of the four Queens of Crime — the only New Zealander among them, and the only one who could have written Death at the Dolphin.

Ngaio Marsh was born in Christchurch in 1895 and spent her life divided between crime writing and theatre. She directed Shakespeare in Canterbury. She almost single-handedly revived New Zealand’s interest in professional theatre. And she wrote 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries over 48 years, the last one published the year she died. The Sun called her “the finest writer in the English language of the pure, classical puzzle whodunit… among the crime queens, Ngaio Marsh stands out as an empress.”

This Diamond Anniversary omnibus — published in 2009 to mark 75 years since her first novel — collects three novels from her mature early-1960s period, plus the short story “The Cupid Mirror.”

Hand in Glove (1962): An April Fool’s party ends with a man dead in a ditch and a condolence letter sent before the body was found. English village, English eccentrics, and a puzzle for Superintendent Alleyn.

Dead Water (1963): The Cornish village of Portcarrow is thriving on a trade in miraculous healing waters. When someone tries to stop it, Alleyn finds himself literally on the spot.

Death at the Dolphin (1967): A bombed-out London theatre, a Shakespeare glove, an oil millionaire, and murder. Marsh at her most theatrical — which is Marsh at her most assured.

Both Hand in Glove and Dead Water were later adapted for the BBC’s Inspector Alleyn Mysteries television series.

Why We Stock It:

Ngaio Marsh is on New Zealand’s literary backbone — a global figure whose NZ identity is inseparable from her work and her legacy. The annual Ngaio Marsh Award for NZ crime fiction is named for her. This is 640 pages of three of her best, in a beautiful out-of-print Diamond Anniversary edition.