A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh – a review from a different perspective By Kait Carson

Inspired by Warren Bull’s reviews of classic mystery novels I picked up a copy of Ngaio Marsh’s A Man Lay Dead. The book, and the author were full of surprises. I had expected Ms. Marsh to be a Brit. I suppose she was, being born in New Zealand in 1900, but only because her birth preceded Dominion Day by a few years. Then it surprised me to find that she continued writing until her death in 1982. She was the last of the “Golden Era” mystery writers to publish contemporaneously. A testament to her long life and fertile imagination.

A Man Lay Dead is the first of Marsh’s long running Roderick Alleyn series. It’s also her first mystery novel, supposedly inspired by a rainy day in London and a desire to see if she could write a mystery. It would be overly kind to say she nailed it, but I did give the book five stars in my review. A review from a different perspective. Not a review of a book, which was flawed, as Marsh herself later admits, but a review of a genre. The cozy mystery.

Marsh, Christie, and others in the 1930s were giving birth to a new form of story. In the beginning there was the English country house. There were crimes taking place in these posh settings, perpetrated by well-heeled criminals. The suspect pool was limited, the motives, generally were, too, the means, available to all. The police, or in Marsh’s book, Scotland Yard, were called in, but they made use of the available amateurs to solve the crime.

The amateur sleuth became a viable crime fighter in the country house mystery largely because they knew where the bodies were buried. There were few significant secrets among the group despite the stiffness of the upper lips. The public enjoyed the glimpse of the high life. Britain was in the throes of the Great Slump. At the same time, readers weren’t averse to seeing a toff get his due. Society was in flux. Marsh pays deference to this by hinting that her Scotland Yard detective might be a social equal of the country house set. He knows how to work his crowd, but he still remembers to pull his forelock and let them be partners in the solution of the crime.

The book has the feel of a primer, or perhaps a rough sketch as Marsh was also a painter. The red herrings are broad and reflect the fears and prejudices of the time. The characterizations are not quite fully formed. Coincidence drives many of the clue discoveries and transitional scenes. The setting is well drawn and the reader has the feeling it is based on an actual location. Interestingly, there is an undercurrent of feminism. It’s only fair that I read the last of the series now. I want to discover how Marsh grew her characters and changed her stories over fifty years. Did poor Inspector Alleyn get to retire – or did the Yard let him dotter on into his eighties?

Readers – have you read this series, or any series that had a fifty-year life span? How did it hold your interest?

Writers – Could you keep characters and storylines fresh for fifty years?