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...

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...

"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...

The acclaimed author brings us crime at a country-house Christmas party in “one of her best and most baffling mysteries” (Daily Express).
It’s the Christmas season in 1972, and Agatha Troy is at a house party, 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...

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."