bio notes:
born: 4/23/1899
died: 2/18/1982
born as: Edith Ngaio Marsh

One of New Zealand's most popular 20th-century authors who was a major force in raising the detective story to the level of a respectable literary genre. She is known especially for her many mystery stories featuring Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature