Roderick Alleyn mysteries

Crime comes to a country house: “Any Ngaio Marsh story is certain to be Grade A, and this one is no exception.” —The New York Times
This classic from the Golden Age of British mystery opens during a country-house party between the two world wars—servants bustling, gin flowing, the gentlemen in dinner jackets, the ladies all slink and smolder. Even more delicious: The host, Sir Hubert Handesley, has invented...

"For one unlucky Member of Parliament, a simple visit to the hospital (the 'nursing home' of the title) proves fatal. But as Inspector Alleyn will discover, any number of people had reason to help the gentleman to his just reward, including the sour surgeon, his besotted nurse, a resentful wife, and a cabinet full of political rivals."--P. [4] of cover.

A police inspector finds trouble during a trip to New Zealand: "It's time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around." —New York Magazine
Inspector Roderick Alleyn has taken a break from England and journeyed to New Zealand, and traveling along with him are the members of the Carolyn Dacres English Comedy Company. The actors' operatic intrigues offer an amusing diversion—until, unexpectedly, they turn...

A high-society homicide is the talk of the London season . . ."Marsh's writing is a pleasure." —The Seattle Times
It's debutante season in London, and that means giggles and tea-dances, white dresses and inappropriate romances . . ..and much too much champagne. And, apparently, a blackmailer, which is where Inspector Roderick Alleyn comes in. The social whirl is decidedly not Alleyn's environment, so he brings in an assistant...

A game of darts does involve some danger, but it's rarely lethal. There are exceptions, however, like the famous barrister who was enjoying a pint at the Plume of Feathers pub, and is now residing at the morgue. But Inspector Roderick Alleyn has a growing hunch that this peculiar "accident" can be traced to an old legal case ...

This tale of murder at a snowed-in country house is a “constant puzzle to the end . . . alive with wit” (The New York Times).
The unspeakably wealthy (and generally unspeakable) Jonathan Royal has decided to throw a party and, just for fun, has studded the guest list with people who loathe one another. When a blizzard imprisons them all in Royal’s country house, murder ensues, and there are nearly...

"World War II rages on, and Inspector Alleyn continues as the Special Branch's eyes and ears in New Zealand. While his primary brief is spy-catching, he's also happy to help with old-fashioned policing. Flossie Rubrick, an influential Member of Parliament and the wife of a sheep farmer, is murdered. Had she made political enemies? Had a mysterious legacy prompted her death? Or could the shadowy world of international espionage have intruded on this...

Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn and his wife Troy are relaxing at a night club. At the table next to theirs is the party of George Settinger, marquis of Pastern and Bagott. All are waiting for the feature of the floor show. Part of the performance calls for Lord Pastern to fire a gun full of blanks at a band member and for the latter to slump and fall and be borne out by waiters, a wreath over his heart, playing dead. But something goes terribly wrong....

"Inspector Alleyn has decamped for the South of France for a vacation en famille. Well, the famille will be vay-caying while Alleyn does a little official poking around. Unfortunately, the object of his poking--the cultish denizens of a sinister and luxurious chateau--are not over-fond of being poked, and they have a particularly unpleasant way of getting their point across."--Back cover.

The village of South Mardian likes the old ways. The very old ways. This may be 1957, but South Mardian still features a blacksmith, a village idiot, and an elaborate fertility ritual performed at the winter solstice. There's squabbling, of course, and worse-like when one of the ritual's main players is found beheaded, everything north of his neck having been neatly lopped off by a ritual sword. Inspector Alleyn does have to contain a certain incredulous...

Mary Bellamy is the sweetheart of the London stage, fluffy as only an elderly lady of 50(!) can be. Her fans and friends-- and who didn't adore, positively adore darling Mary?-- are heartbroken when somehow Mary manages to spritz herself not with her favorite perfume but with the deadly insecticide meant to be sprayed on the azaleas. Inspector Alleyn begins by smelling something fishy (everything he learns about lovely, fragile Mary suggests that...

A spring may have healing properties-but the controversy over it may have harmful results-in a witty mystery by a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. The elderly Emily Pride is perfectly pleased to have inherited an island, even if her starchy pragmatism is ever-so-faintly appalled by the island's "Pixie Falls" spring and its reported miraculous healing properties. Really, the locals' attempts to capitalize on the "miracles" are entirely too...

Agatha Troy (the artist wife of Inspector Alleyn) has a special fondness for Constable s work, so she jumps at the chance to take a river-cruise through Constable country in the east of England. Her enthusiasm dims a little when it becomes clear that the ticket became available at the last minute only because a previous passenger was murdered, it seems, by a notorious international criminal known as the Jampot. The murder's don't stop there - and...

It's 1972, and while Elton John and Alice Cooper may be topping the charts, Inspector Alleyn s latest case is set in that most gloriously retro environment: The country-house party. A Christmas party, as it happens, where Agatha Troy is enjoying the local holiday pageant and also painting the host's portrait. The painting's coming along fine, but the pageant goes a little pear-shaped when one of the players disappears. Could one of the party's eccentric...

Ricky Alleyn perhaps you know his father, Roderick? first appeared in Spinsters in Jeopardy, as a child. He s now 21, and has taken himself off to a secluded island to write a novel. Or think about writing a novel. Or look for distractions so he can avoid writing a novel. The distractions abound, mostly in the form of colorful local characters (and a rather dishy one), so all is beer and skittles (well, except for the novel) until Ricky stumbles across...

The murder of a famous opera soprano finds Inspector Alleyn crawling around backstage in her life, interviewing agents, past lovers, servants, and others hoping to learn who dispatched La Sommita with her own stiletto.

Inspector Alleyn just wants to write a letter to his wife, but World War II, for one, keeps intruding. It's war-work, after all, that has brought Alleyn to this seedy hospital in New Zealand's hinterlands, and it's the war that has left the hospital swimming in convalescing soldiers - noisy, often drunk, and always over-interested in the nurses. Nor is the weather helping. A storm has killed the electrical power, leaving Alleyn, the soldiers, the...