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.

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...

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...

At an English pub, a dart becomes a deadly weapon: “Any Ngaio Marsh story is certain to be Grade A.” —The New York Times
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”...

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. In true Christie-esque tradition, there are nearly as many suspects as there are potential victims. Eventually, Inspector Alleyn makes his way through the snow to put things right.

"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...

"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.

Folkways turn fatal in a very old-fashioned English village, in this witty mystery filled with "ingenious" detective work (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
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...

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...

Agatha Troy (the artist wife of Inspector Alleyn) has a special fondness for 19th century landscape painter John 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....

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...

A diva is dead in New Zealand . . . “A neat little puzzle, sparkling writing . . .a book that should make all readers happy.” —The New York Times
The soprano Isabella Sommita was widely loathed, so much so that the problem with solving her murder is less a lack of plausible suspects than an embarrassment of options. On a lavish island estate, cut off from the mainland by a sudden...

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...