Photo: Murray/Fairfax Media via Getty Images (1960)
Sample of authors
Marsh, Ngaio
The New Zealand author Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was born in Merivale, Christchurch. Her father was an immigrant English bank manager and her mother was born in New Zealand, although her family too originally came from England. Ngaio is the Maori word for "reflection on water". A somewhat eccentric and confused man, Marsh's father did not report his daughter's birth to the authorities until 1900,...
Literary figures
John Poole
Gender: Male
When Henry Wade (pseudonym for Henry Aubrey-Fletcher) introduced the pipe-smoking police detective John Poole in 1934, he was a new type of police officer in crime fiction: well brought-up, charming, with an academic education and from a good family. He is just over 180cm tall, athletically built, with a firm mouth and grey eyes. He becomes a police officer when he is only 23 years old, and a...