From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Opening Night

Ngaio Marsh

Start date: April 1, 2019

Finish date: April 30, 2019

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: The next in our Ngaio Marsh challenge.
[close] The next in our Ngaio Marsh challenge.

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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 16 posts · 18 views

last updated Sep 12, 2025 08:12PM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
By Susan · 13 posts · 22 views

last updated Sep 16, 2025 12:58PM

What Members Thought

Mar 22, 2019 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is the sixteenth Inspector Alleyn book and was first published in 1951. This instalment in the series, shows Ngaio Marsh turning to a world she knew extremely well – that of the theatre.

Martyn Tarne is nineteen, and has come from New Zealand to try her luck as an actress. Unfortunately, she had her money stolen on board ship and, when we meet her, she is tramping sadly from theatre, to theatre, attempting to find work. Exhausted, and hungry, she happens to be resting in the Vulcan theatre, ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Dec 01, 2021 Lady Wesley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-golden-age-or-similar, listened

Review of the audiobook narrated by James Saxon

Ngaio Marsh is known for setting several of her Golden Age-era mysteries in the theatre, which she knew very well as a vocation and avocation. Just for fun, I have been revisiting those theatre-set stories.

Opening Night/Night at the Vulcan (pub. 1951) is fascinating. I like the characters -- most of them anyway. (As an aside, I have noticed that even though Marsh loves the theatre, she may not love all actors. Some of them are very unpleasant, even ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 30, 2019 Sandy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rread-2019, mystery-detective-grp, mystery-classic, zngaio-challenge-2019

Excellent entry in the series with an interesting and sympathetic cast of characters. Marsh is at her best when she uses theatre settings. This book heavy references an earlier short story, 'I Can Find My Way Out', and I recommend reading that first if convenient. ...more

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Mar 25, 2019 Jill rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ngaio-marsh

Hurrah. No dysfunctional family. No romance for Alleyn. A murder mystery. Hopefully we are now back to mysteries we were expecting from Marsh. New Zealand still crept in but not in a big way.

1 like · Like · see review

Dec 19, 2013 John Frankham rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-detective

2020 x re-read again! Still so good!

2019: Yet another re-read of this terrific classic whodunnit.

One of my favourite Detective Chief Inspector Alleyn whodunnits. Ngaio Marsh's knowledge/love of the theatre comes through in the first half as 19yo Martyn Tarn manages to enter the theatre company as an emergency dresser. A lovely range of cast characters/suspects.

The GR blurb:

'A London actor was dying for a star billing...

From the leading lady's liaison to the harassment of an aging juvenile lead-t ...more

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