Some distinguished guests at Sir Hubert Handesley’s country estate decide to play exotic games. But when a corpse turns out to be it, the game gets vicious. In steps the renowned Inspector Alleyn, who moves coolly through this world of butlers and Bentleys to unravel a coil of scandal, conspiracy, and murder most foul…

The second book from Chief-Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn series

Inspector Alleyn had so many suspects for the murder of the Home Secretary, that, for once, he was at a loss. Except for one detail — one grisly little detail — that only the likes of Roderick Alleyn would ever notice…

The woman stretched both her hands out and the priest gave her the cup. “The wine of ecstasy gives joy to your body and soul.” She raised the cup to her lips. Her head tipped back until the last drop must have been drained. Suddenly she gasped violently. Her face twisted into an appalling grimace. She pitched forward like an enormous doll, jerked twice, and then was still… She may have been in a state of ecstasy, but she was undoubtedly dead

On vacation in New Zealand, Inspector Alleyn meets a theater troupe engaged in a real-life drama more killing than anything they’ve ever staged. When the producer is struck down at a celebration party with a jeroboam of champagne. Inspector Alleyn moves quickly behind the scenes. There he encounters a malevolent Maori idol, a peculiar will, and an unknown thespian whose role is pure murder…

A model murder… where a famous painter Agatha Troy, R.A., makes her appearance

A murder in aristocratic circles. The seventh mystery in Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn series

Everyone in town disliked the rich, nasty spinster who delighted in stirring up jealousies and exposing well-kept secrets — the doctor’s wild affair, the old squire’s escapades, the young squire’s revels. But when the lady was shot at the piano while playing the overture for an amateur theatrical, Inspector Alleyn knew he was faced with a killer who was very much a professional

Among the guests at the Plume of Feathers on the memorable evening of the murder were a West End matinée idol, a successful portrait painter, an Oxford-educated farmer’s daughter, a radical organizer and assorted rustics and villagers. Each of them had an opportunity to place the deadly poison on the dart that seemingly had been the instrument of murder. But no one admitted seeing any suspicious movement on the part of anyone else. And what exactly had been the method of the killer? This was the problem Inspector Alleyn had to solve — and he does so with all of his accustomed verve and brilliance

With a “sidekick” named Shakespeare, Inspector Alleyn singles out a killer from a glittering array of suspects…

A footman should not be dancing when on duty. But suppose he does — what will be the consequences for the solving of a murder puzzle?

New Zealand, Maoris, murder… Who is better qualified to write about them than Ngaio Marsh?

“Murder. What a beastly soft sound the word makes!” With a corpse in a pack of raw wool…

Sir Henry Ancred, the celebrated Shakespearian actor, wishes to have his portrait painted in the role of Macbeth by Agatha Troy, the famous artist. Amid a welter of practical jokes, Sir Henry dies and Chief Inspector Alleyn is called in to investigate

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 daughter Félicité. So when a bit of stage business goes awry and actually kills him, it's lucky that Inspector Rodrerick Alleyn is in the audience. Now Alleyn must follow a confusing score that features a chorus of family and friends desperate to hide the truth and perhaps shelter a murder in their midst

“Gas!” Parry Percival said under his breath. Martyn, who thought the Doctor was doing well, glanced indignantly at Parry and was astonished to see that he looked frightened. “ ‘—therefore,’ ” the Doctor was saying arrogantly, “ ‘to beg will not become me—’ ” “Gas!” said an imperative voice off-stage and someone else ran noisily round the back of the set. And then Martyn smelled it. Gas…

Peering into the early morning dark as his train neared its destination, Alleyn glimpsed a horrifying tableau. A lighted window masked by a spring blind. A woman falling against the blind and releasing it. Farther back in the room, a man in a flowing white garment, his face in shadow. Beyond his right shoulder, something that looked like a huge wheel. His right arm was raised. And in his hand… Abruptly, the weird scene was cut off as the train roared into a tunnel… And it was only later, in an ancient chateau, that Alleyn discovered the ghastly truth of what he had witnessed!

A cry of mourning, intolerably loud, rose from beyond the willows and hung on the night air. A thrush whirred out of the thicket close to her face, and the cry broke and wavered again. It was the howl of a dog. She pushed through the thicket into an opening by the river, and found the body of Colonel Carterette with his spaniel beside it, mourning him

When the Sword Dancer's mock beheading becomes horribly real, it is Superintendent Roderick Alleyn who must discover who had the best motive for murder

Hyacinths… mad singing… Scattered pearls… and a strangled beauty every ten days… Inspector Alleyn believed the killer was on a sleek cruiser bound for South Africa. It was now the tenth day out, and everyone, including the famed Alleyn, felt the horror closing in…

The guests ranged themselves at both sides of the door, like the chorus in a grand opera, A figure appeared in the entrance. It was not Mary Bellamy, but Florence. As if to keep the scene relentlessly theatrical, she began to cry out in a small, shrill voice: “A doctor! A doctor! Is there a doctor in the house!”

Suspicion runs rampant among the gentry of an English village, as Inspector Alleyn tries to find a method in murder — before a crafty killer can strike again!

“The body” was discovered by Inspector Roderick Alleyn himself, old friend of the deceased, eighty-three-year-old Miss Emily Pride. Miss Pride had been looking for trouble: the sole inheritor of a tiny island, site of a miraculous spring, she didn’t approve of the sudden flood of visitors in search of miracles. So she threatened to close the spring. And that brought her what she’d been looking for…

A glove made for Shakespeare's son Hamnet by his grandfather - is it genuine? Is it worth killing for? Is the Dolphin Theatre the place for it?

While Agatha Troy Alleyn is on a river cruise and enjoys true Constable landscapes, her husband Superintendent Alleyn has to investigate a murder most foul amidst the same clutch of Constables...  

It was April in Rome, and gathered together in the church of San Tommaso in Pallario was the kind of varied group of people that can only meet on a tour. They were there under the aegis of one Sebastian Mailer, who had promised them a most unconventional tour — a claim no one later disputed, after encountering murder, blackmail and drug-running. Inspector Roderick Alleyn, in Rome on a special mission, became involved in the case, and found it one of his most baffling — a case in which every suspect might equally well prove a victim…

Christmas time in an isolated country house and, following a flaming row in the kitchen, there's murder inside. When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected — and foul play it proves to be. Only suspicion falls not on the staff but on the guests, all so unimpeachably respectable that the very thought of murder in connection with any of them seems almost heresy. When Superintendent Roderick Alleyn returns unexpectedly from a trip to Australia, it is to find his beloved wife in the thick of an intriguing mystery…

Tension mounts as Inspector Alleyn works against time to collar a vicious killer and avert a political holocaust, the repercussions of which would be felt around the world!

As particular about her horses as she was casual about her lovers, young Dulcie Harkness courted trouble — and found it in a lonely and dangerous jump. What will her death reveal? Young Roderick Alleyn (Ricky) is the object of special interest

A bit snobbish and a trifle high-strung, Sybil Foster prides herself on owning the finest estate in Upper Quintern and hiring the best gardener. In fact, she is rapturous over the new asparagus beds when a visit from her unwelcome stepson sends her scurrying to a chic spa for a rest cure, a liaison with the spa's director… and an apparent suicide. Her autopsy holds one surprise, a secret drawer a second. And Inspector Roderick Alleyn, C.I.D., digging about Upper Quintern, may unearth still a third… deeply buried motive for murder

The Sommita lay spread-eagled on her back across a red counterpane. The bosom of her red biblical dress had been torn down to the waist and under her left breast, irrelevantly, unbelievably, the haft of a knife stuck out. The right arm, rigid as a branch, was raised in the fascist salute. She might have been posed for the jacket on an all-too-predictable shocker…

Peregrine Jay, owner of the Dolphin Theatre, is putting on a magnificent production of Macbeth, the play that, superstition says, always brings bad luck. But one night the claymore swings and the dummy's head is more than real: murder behind the scene. Luckily, Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn is in the audience…