Clutch of Constables
A classic Ngaio Marsh novel which features blood-curdling murders in the confines of a riverboat, the Zodiac, cruising through Constable country.
’He looks upon the murders that he did in fact perform as tiresome and regrettable necessities,’ reflected Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn on the international crook known as ‘the Jampot’.
But it was Alleyn’s wife Troy who knew ‘the Jampot’ best: she had shared close quarters with him on the tiny pleasure steamer Zodiac on a cruise along the peaceful rivers of ‘Constable country’. And it was she who knew something was badly wrong even before Alleyn was called in to solve the two murders on board…
Dame Ngaio Marsh was born in New Zealand in 1895 and died in February 1982. She wrote over 30 detective novels and many of her stories have theatrical settings, for Ngaio Marsh’s real passion was the theatre. She was both actress and producer and almost single-handedly revived the New Zealand public’s interest in the theatre. It was for this work that the received what she called her ‘damery’ in 1966.