Roderick Alleyn mysteries

A policeman in the audience sees an all-too-real death scene on a London stage: "Good enough to satisfy the most critical reader of detective stories." —The New York Times
Inspector Roderick Alleyn has been invited to an opening night, a new play in which two characters quarrel and then struggle for a gun, with predictably sad results. Even sadder, the gun was not, in fact, loaded with blanks. And when it comes to interviewing...

Tainted wine sends a member of a religious sect to meet her maker in a witty mystery marked by "quiet, intelligent deduction" (Kirkus Reviews).
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 of prussic acid she transported herself to the Hereafter.
Now Inspector Alleyn must investigate a murder at the House of the Sacred Flame, a rather quirky...

In the movies, it's known as a "meet cute." But for Inspector Alleyn and Miss Agatha Troy, it's more like irritation: On the ship back to England, she finds him 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 relaxing end to his vacation, then he gets a call that a model has been stabbed at the artists' community...

A local busybody is silenced for good in this tale by "a peerless practitioner of the slightly surreal, English-village comedy-mystery" (Kirkus Reviews).
In their Dorset village, neither Miss Campanula nor her friend Miss Prentice are known as lovable little old ladies. They're waspish, gossiping snobby little old ladies, passionate only about their amateur theatrical productions, their narrowly defined opinions about how everyone...

A mystery with "atmosphere, humor . . .and a group of characters, English, Maori, and New Zealander, who are fascinating and completely credible." —The New York Times
During World War II, Colonel Claire—a tremendously nice fellow and a disastrously bad businessman—runs a mud-baths resort in rural New Zealand. But the place is on the brink of being taken over by a local blowhard who may be a Nazi spy. Inspector Alleyn has...

"A delicious and classic country-house mystery. Well, country-castle. The lord of the manor is Sir Henry Ancred, a celebrated Shakespearian actor (and pompous bore), who has arranged to have his portrait painted by none other than Agatha Troy, wife of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. She's rather glad to be stepping out of Alleyn's shadow, so much so that when Ancred is killed at his own birthday party, Troy at first tries sleuthing on her own. But she's...

"A shabby, fourth-rate theater, the Vulcan is not where Martyn Tarne hoped to work, when she moved from New Zealand to London in hope of a glittering acting career. But a girl has to eat, so Martyn takes a job as dresser to the Vulcan's leading lady. This provides her with a ringside seat to the backstage circus: the aging alcoholic actor, the waspish playwright, the ingénue on the make, the surprisingly gracious grande dame. There is, of course,...

"Of all the books in the Alleyn series, 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, in fact, a trout at his side--everyone is dreadfully upset, of course, but really, just a tad irritated as well: Murder is so awfully messy. Thank gawd that...

It’s foul play on a freighter: “Enthralling . . .keeps the reader on tenterhooks until the dramatic finale.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The good ship Cape Farewell is steaming out to sea, with a passenger-list and crew fairly littered with the shifty, the twitchy, the peculiar, and the up-to-no-good. Arguably the up-to-no-goodest is a strangler with a romantic streak: He likes to leave...

A deadly dull man is now just plain dead in this novel by “a peerless practitioner of the slightly surreal, English-village comedy-mystery.” —Kirkus Reviews
One has to admit that the timing was peculiar. No one could doubt that Mr. Percival Pyke Period was genuinely distraught to hear that his neighbor, Harry Cartell, had turned up dead in a ditch. But how is it that Mr. Percival Pyke came to write the letter...

“Miss Marsh works her characteristic storyteller's magic with the elements of theater and suspense.” —Kirkus Reviews
The impresario Peregrine Jay has fulfilled a long-cherished dream: Thanks to a very generous gift, he now owns the Dolphin Theatre, and has restored it to its former glory. To celebrate the reopening, a no-expenses-spared production of The Glove, a new play about the discovery of a true...

A British tour group in Italy finds murder is an obstacle to their sightseeing: “Fastidious writing [and] a fine appreciation of place.” —Sunday Times
A group of well-to-do tourists is visiting Italy’s magnificent churches, but they’ve found themselves stumbling into an unholy web of blackmail and drug-smuggling—and, in the depths of a Roman basilica, murder. Fortunately Inspector Roderick Alleyn...

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."

A fancy hotel plays host to homicide in a “jubilant” novel by “a peerless practitioner of the slightly surreal, English-village comedy-mystery” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
Sybil Foster lives the sort of little English village that is home mostly to the very rich and the servants who make their lives delightful. But Sybil Foster’s life is not delightful, even if she does have an extremely talented...

"The bad news: This is the last in Ngaio Marsh's marvelous Inspector Alleyn series. The good: It's one of her very best. The secret to Light Thickens success may lie in its combination of some of Marsh's greatest passions, including her native New Zealand in the person of, unusually, a Maori character and the theater. Indeed, the plot centers on a production of well, let's skirt disaster by calling it the Scottish play, a play that Dame Ngaio produced...