As their friends, neighbours and even their family are caught up in the public’s belief in their guilt, it seems that they have very few people left on their side.
They seem to have a motive as their book sales have been falling and the publicity might give them just the boost they need. It’s not long before suspicion falls on them, especially after their unguarded comments at writing festivals about getting away with murder. (Although apparently crime writers tend to be a genuinely lovely bunch of people despite the bloody goings-on of their imaginations.) Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are a crime-writing couple whose son goes missing. The Quiet People is the second of his novels that I’ve read and it plays with the question of whether a crime writer can get away with murder. Paul Cleave, also a Christchurch resident, has won the award three times and has been shortlisted for the Edgar, the Barry and the Ned Kelly awards. Fitting as Christchurch was Marsh’s home town. The Ngaio Marsh Awards for excellence in crime, mystery and thriller writing are now awarded each year as part of Christchurch’s WORD literary festival. One of the “Queens of Crime” alongside the likes of Agatha Christie, Marsh was an actor, interior designer and crime writer, publishing the first of thirty-three detective novels in 1934.
We’ve had Scandi Noir and Aussie Noir, but there’s a fine tradition of Kiwi crime fiction starting with Ngaio Marsh.
