Ngaio Marsh

A touring theatre company in New Zealand forms the basis of one of Marsh's most ambitious and innovative novels. New Zealand theatrical manager Alfred Meyer wanted to celebrate his wife's birthday in style. The piece de resistance would be the jeroboam of champagne which would descend gently into a nest of fern and coloured lights on the table, set up on stage after the performance. But something went horribly wrong. Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn...

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.

Ahhh, prussic acid, that hallmark of classic Golden Age mysteries. Did lovely Cara Quoyne get a whiff of the bitter almonds as she raised the goblet to her lips? We'll never know: With a single sip she transported herself to the Hereafter. At least, that's the romantic view. But Inspector Alleyn has little interest in romance; he's investigating a murder. Cara was a deeply spiritual young woman, a novice with the House of the Sacred Flame. It seems,...

A model is murdered in this “first-rate” detective story by the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master (Kirkus Reviews).
On a ship traveling back to England, Miss Agatha Troy finds Inspector Roderick Alleyn tedious and dull; he thinks she’s a bohemian cliché. They may be destined for romance, but there’s a murder in the way: No sooner has Alleyn settled in to his mother’s house, eager for a...

It's murder in the little English village, but the two local spinsters, Miss Campanula, the victim, and Miss Prentice, her friend who may have been the intended victim, are not exactly the beloved little old ladies of song and story. They were (and are) waspish, gossiping snobs, passionate only about their own narrowly defined religion ... and, perhaps, about the local vicar. But could they have been sufficiently unpleasant to provoke a murderer?

"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.

Scales of Justice is most powerfully reminiscent of Agatha Christie, with its setting in an almost unspeakably charming little English village, and its cast of inbred aristocrats. When one of the aristos turns up dead next to the local trout-stream with a trout at his side everyone is dreadfully upset, but really, just a tad irritated as well: Murder is so awfully messy. Thank gawd that nice Inspector Alleyn is on hand to clear things up.

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...

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...

Ng'ombwana is a (fictional) African nation to have emerged in the wake of colonialism; as it happens, its President is Inspector Alleyn's old school chum, the "Boomer." Old school ties being what they are, the Boomer-making an official visit to London-insists that Alleyn handle his security, rather than Her Majesty's Special Branch. The Special Branch is not best pleased about this, as the Boomer is known to have some very deadly enemies, and the...