The Awards were established by journalist and legal editor Craig Sisterson in 2010, and are named after Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the four Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

for Booknotes magazine saying that New Zealand had great crime writers who were not being supported locally, by bookstores, literary festivals, or awards, and it was time that changed.

The first Ngaio Marsh Award was presented at a special event in Christchurch in December 2010, and won by the pseudonymous author Alix Bosco for the thriller Cut & Run.

[9] For the first three years of the Award, the winner received a distinctive handcrafted trophy designed and created by New Zealand sculptor and Unitec art lecturer Gina Ferguson, a full set of Ngaio Marsh novels, and a cash prize provided by the Christchurch Writers Festival Trust.

The trophy depicted an artistic rendering of Dame Ngaio's famous visage in mother-of-pearl on a black velvet covered partially open book.

In 2011, the "Setting the Stage for Murder" event was held at the Christchurch Arts Festival, with all four finalists and internationally bestselling crime writers Tess Gerritsen and John Hart in attendance.

[11] Bosco's debut thriller, CUT & RUN, was announced as the winner at the conclusion of the event, with representatives from publisher Penguin NZ accepting on the author's behalf.

The second presentation of the Ngaio Marsh Award was made following the "Setting the Stage for Murder" event held as part of the Christchurch Arts Festival in August 2011, which also included appearances by New York Times bestselling authors Tess Gerritsen and John Hart.

[7] The third presentation was during an event at the 2012 Christchurch Writers Festival, which was held in temporary facilities as the city continued to recover from the devastating September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes.