After discussions with many people in the New Zealand book industry, Sisterson decided to launch the Ngaio Marsh Award at the Christchurch Writers Festival in 2010, honouring both contemporary crime writers and New Zealand's most famous mystery writer in her own hometown. He sought and received the blessing of Dame Ngaio Marsh's closest living relative to honour Dame Ngaio by using her name and an artistic impression of her likeness for New Zealand's first-ever crime fiction prize.
