Despite two husbands being dead and a daughter marrying the wrong man, no one believed Sybil Foster was the type to commit suicide, especially Superintenent Roderick Alleyn. For the field was ripe with unfortunate engagements - one of them a very grave mistake.Read more
The April Fool’s Day had been a roaring success for all, it seemed – except for poor Mr Cartell who had ended up in the ditch – for ever.
Then there was the case of Mr Percival Pyke Period’s letter of condolence, sent before the body was found – not to mention the family...Read more
A river cruise may be sunk by a ruthless criminal in this novel by “the doyenne of traditional mystery writers” ( The New York Times ).
Inspector Alleyn’s wife, the artist Agatha Troy, has a special fondness for Constables—the paintings, that is, not the policemen. So she jumps...Read more
One of Ngaio Marsh’s most popular novels, this time featuring one of her best creations – Lucy Lockett, the crime-solving cat.
When the exuberant president of Ng’ombwana proposes to dispense with the usual security arrangements on an official visit to London, his old school mate...Read more
Ngaio Marsh returns to her New Zealand roots to transplant the classic country house murder mystery to an upland sheep station on South Island -- and produces one of her most exotic and intriguing novels. One summer evening in 1942 Flossie Rubrick, MP, one of the most formidable women in...Read more
The last ditch hidden behind a hedge, is a sheer drop, murderously deep—especially when someone stretches a wire across to trip a horse.
The last to jump is a young stablehand, who is duly crushed beneath several stone of well-groomed mare.
The last straw for...Read more
With this novel of mounting tension among apparently normal people, Ngaio Marsh achieved a triumph on a level with her most famous detective novels Surfeit of Lampreys, Scales of Justice and Off With His Head.
On a cold February night the police find the third corpse on the...Read more
When Lord Pasern Bagott takes up with the hot music of Breezy Bellair and his Boys, his disapproving wife Cecile has more than usual to be unhappy about. The band's devastatingly handsome but roguish accordionist, Carlos Rivera, has taken a rather intense and mutual interest in her precious...Read more
The restoration of a bombed-out London theatre ends in violent death – and one of Marsh’s most vivid and dramatic novels.
When the bombed-out Dolphin Theatre is given to Peregrine Jay by a mysterious wealthy patron, he is overjoyed. And when the mysterious oil millionaire also...Read more
Mary Bellamy, ageing darling of the London stage, holds a 50th birthday party. But someone uses a deadly insect spray on Mary instead of on the azaleas. The suspects are playing the part of mourners. Superintendent Alleyn has to find out which one has played the part of murderer.Read more
A quirky Roderick Alleyn mystery about faith, greed – and murder.
Times are good in the Cornish village of Portcarrow, as hundreds of unfortunates flock to taste the miraculous waters of Pixie Falls.
Then Miss Emily Pride inherits the celebrated land on which...Read more
Troy Alleyn, Inspector Roderick Alleyn's beautiful young wife, is engaged to paint a portrait of Sir Henry Ancred, famed Shakespearean actor and family patriarch, but she senses all is not well in the dreary castle of Ancreton. When old Hnery is found dead after a suspicious dinner and an...Read more
Often regarded as her most interesting book and set on New Zealand's North Island, Ngaio Marsh herself considered this to be her best-written novel. It was a horrible death -- Maurice Questing was lured into a pool of boiling mud and left there to die. Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn, far...Read more
The party's over when murder makes an entrance...
With the notion of bringing together the most bitter of enemies for his own amusement, a bored, mischievous millionaire throws a house party. As a brutal snowstorm strands the unhappy guests, the party receives a most unwelcome...Read more
Ngaio Marsh's most popular novel begins when a young New Zealander's first contact with the English gentry is the body of Lord Wutherford -- with a meat skewer through the eye...The Lampreys had plenty of charm -- but no cash. They all knew they were peculiar -- and rather gloried in it....Read more
At the Plume of Feathers in south Devon one midsummer evening, eight people are gathered together in the tap-room. They are in the habit of playing darts, but on this occasion an experiment takes the place of the usual game – a fatal experiment which calls for investigation.
A...Read more
One of Ngaio Marsh's most famous murder mysteries, which introduces Inspector Alleyn to his future wife, the irrepressible Agatha Troy. It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model's pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to...Read more
A body in the back of a taxi begins an elegantly constructed mystery, perhaps the finest of Marsh's 1930s novels.The season had begun. Debutantes and chaperones were planning their luncheons, teas, dinners, balls. And the blackmailer was planning his strategies, stalking his next victim.But...Read more
Who slipped cyanide into the ceremonial wine of ecstasy at the House of the Sacred Flame? The other initiates and the High Priest claim to be above earthly passions. But Roderick Alleyn discovers that the victim had provoked lust and jealousy, and he suspects that more evil still lurks...Read more
Ngaio Marsh's bestselling and ingenious third novel remains one of the most popular pieces of crime fiction of all time. Sir John Phillips, the Harley Street surgeon, and his beautiful nurse Jane Harden are almost too nervous to operate. The emergency case on the table before them is the...Read more
The crime scene was the stage of the Unicorn Theatre, when prop gun fired a very real bullet; the victim was an actor clawing his way to stardom using bribery instead of talent; and the suspects included two unwilling girlfriends and several relieved blackmail victims. The stage is set for...Read more
Ngaio Marsh's classic first novel, which introduced Inspector Alleyn and set Ngaio Marsh on the path to international recognition. Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house-parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the...Read more
I was prompted to re-read this after an absence of 3(cough) something years (good grief when did those years happen), by a discussion on 4 Mystery Addicts (the best online crime fiction discussion group that I've ever found).
Colour Scheme is one of Ngaio Marsh's books actually...Read more