Have you ever finished reading all of the novels written by an author whose books you really enjoy and find yourself wishing for more? Perhaps you go looking for short stories next – preferably about your favorite characters, but you’re open to just about anything that will give you the pleasure of finding, so to speak, fine old wine in a new bottle. That’s sort of how I feel about a volume of short stories and a couple of other writings by one of the so-called Crime Queens of the Golden Age, Ngaio Marsh.
First, for those of you with eagle's eyes, always eager to pounce (or more likely to ignore) the "mistake" you see in the headline above, the title of the volume we're discussing today goes by a couple of different names. As I've had the volume on my bookshelves for many years under the title given in its earlier incarnation - The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh - I'm sticking with that title. However, the book is currently in print from Felony & Mayhem Press and should be available for your favorite book dealer (or Amazon) as Collected Short Mysteries, which also makes sense, and it also links to a much lower and more affordable price for the book, so choose your poison (as we say in the fictional murder biz). Or check out both of the above links.
No matter which title you prefer, the book itself is a short collection, edited and introduced by mystery scholar Douglas G. Greene, of all of the short fictional works of one of the great queens of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Ngaio Marsh. Her reputation is justifiably based on her 32 mystery novels written between 1934 and 1982. Her series detective star is Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. He is joined – in many of the author’s later books – by his wife, Agatha Troy Alleyn.
Marsh passed away in 1982, but she was more fortunate than many other writers of the Golden Age in that many of her books have endured and are still available in print or electronic editions. In 1989, Douglas G. Greene put together this anthology of mostly-unknown short works by Marsh. There’s something in it for nearly everyone who enjoys her writing, including a couple of essays explaining the origins of both the characters of Alleyn and Troy.. For more details about what else you'll find in the book, please do click over to this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, where I've included a list and some comments. It’s an interesting collection of little-known works by Ngaio Marsh, and I commend it to you.
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