Death on the Air and Other Stories

By: Ngaio Marsh

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

A man dies with his hand on a radio dial. A distinguished aristocrat finds murder at the opening night of a play. A cryptogram produces death in an English churchyard.

Death on the Air and Other Stories serves as the perfect introduction to Ngaio Marsh and her creation, Inspector Roderick Alleyn, or as a nostalgic journey for her many fans.

©1989 Ngaio Marsh

I'm glad it was free

the preface asserts that Marsh is a better writer than Christie. this got me excited. alas, the bar was set far too high. not better than Christie and, unfortunately, not even good. the best story in the collection ends with no denouement. the redeeming piece in the collection is the letter at the end to a would-be author which has nothing to do with Marsh's normal body of work.

An excellent compilation of stories.

I greatly enjoy the style and the stories. The narration was excellent.
I am officially a Ngaio Marsh fan .

Some hiccups

Didn't much like the criticism of other authors, however the stories were enjoyable and entertaining.

Good Introduction To Ngaio Marsh

This book provides an interesting range of stories and other forms of writing by Ngaio Marsh. It is a nice introduction to her main characters Roderick Alleyn and Agatha Troy, and showcases her other talents outside of her main series. She wrote about what she observed around her. Some people say this makes her material dated. I say that it provides a window into another, older time that I would not normally have. Finally, I gave Performance 4 stars because the reading seems to run from one story right into the next with little perceptible pause. It makes it difficult to tell when one story ends and the next begins.

Good stories but poor oral performance

The Ngaio Marsh stories are very good but the performance by Wanda McCadden makes her sound like a very unpleasant person.

Adequate

I like the portions with the Alleyns, but found most stories predictable and not as well-crafted as her more fully-fleshed out novels.
The background essays on Alleyn and Troy were great fun.
I did enjoy the narrator.

A,little disappointing, but mostly a good listen.

The best pieces weren’t the stories. The essays on Allyn and Troy, along with the concluding letter to a would-be writer, were great. The stories with Allyn were good, but I think Ngaio Marsh is seen/heard better in longer works. If you have not read any of her books and were disappointed in these short pieces, try some of her longer pieces.

A Treasure Trove

I was brought up short by the introduction’s assertion that Ngaio Marsh was a better writer—meaning a better craftsman—than Agatha Christie. Though I've enjoyed several Alleyn novels, the comparison never occurred to me. But I agree.

Of course, the “portraits” of Inspector Alleyn and Agatha Troy at the beginning of this collection tackle the questions fans want answered most, but they also feature some vivid writing. The imagery and dramatic pacing in the eight stories that follow (one recounting a true mystery; one, the most emotionally insightful of the bunch, written when she was still a girl) testify to the influence of Marsh’s other two pursuits, in front of the easel and behind the scenes at the theater. Listening to these stories, it's hard to believe that--at least according to the introduction--writing was merely Marsh’s third love.

The TV script, “Evil Liver”, was just as good as any of the stories and (to my surprise) just as engrossing, in spite of its script format. And the final piece, “Oh, My Poor Boy”, a letter to someone who wanted to be an author, is a dash of cold, sensible water in the face of all dilletantes. Nadia May serves up each piece to perfection.

Fascinating insights from the author

<p>Ngaio Marsh was queen of the golden age of British “who-done-its”, far surpassing the work of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. I have re-read her books countless times over the years. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the short stories in this anthology, and in fact ordered the anthology because of them, in the end it was the essays that I found most fascinating. </p>
<p>The introduction by author Susan Howatch was a magnificent tribute to Marsh’s work and its influence upon her own prolific and outstanding writing career. She goes on to give a very interesting biography of Ngaio Marsh and an analysis of her body of work. </p>
<p>In the first essay, Ngaio Marsh talks how the series began and how her detective, Roderick Alleyn, was formed. She also discusses the beginnings of his love, artist Agatha Troy. In the closing essay, “My Dear Boy”, she writes a conversational response to all the aspiring writers who have appealed to her over the years. These essays were significantly enhanced by the reading of Nadia May, as I could almost imagine that the author herself was speaking her thoughts. </p>
<p>The short stories were also very good. They had originally been published in various magazines and were quite ingenious, with settings spanning the range from the theater to village life to New Zealand. For those who enjoyed Marsh’s novel “Death of a Peer” (the American title of “A Surfeit of Lampreys”) you will enjoy the reappearance of Lord Michael Lamprey in a cameo role in one of the stories. Agatha Troy also makes an appearance, and, as ever, Alleyn is assisted by the trusty Inspector Fox. </p>
<p>I recommend this audio book to anyone who loves Ngaio Marsh; to anyone who would like to get to know the great Ngaio Marsh stories; and to anyone who loves classic detective fiction, particularly of the British who-done-it variety. </p>

Not bad. Excellent background info

Good enough stories. Not as fabulous as her novels, but Conan Doyle was the master of that genre. (Conversely, his Holmes novels only got that long with rather trite, Ned Buntline-style back stories.) Worth it to round out a Ngaio Marsh collection.