Bøger i Inspector Roderick Alleyn serien

Inspector Alleyn has decamped for the South of France for a family vacation. Well, that and a little official poking around. Unfortunately, the object of his poking--the cultish denizens of a sinister and luxurious chateau--are not fond of being poked, and they have a particularly unpleasant way of getting their point across. More a thriller than a whodunit, this is a fresh take for Marsh, while retaining the cleverness and vivid characterizations that her fans demand.

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 his ladies with a flower and a charming little song. Alleyn boards the Cape at Portsmouth, determined that no one else is going to get strangled on his watch.

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.

Ngaio Marsh was, among other things, a well-respected theatrical producer (having started out as an actress), and her passion for and knowledge of the theater was displayed in many of Alleyn's adventures. In Enter a Murderer, the Inspector 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.

Ah, the London Debutante Season: 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 in the form of Lord "Bunchy" Gospell, everybody's favorite uncle. Bunchy is more than loveable; he's also got some serious sleuthing skills. But before he can unmask the blackmailer, a murder is announced. And everyone suddenly stops giggling.

A delicious, classic country-house mystery. Sir Henry Ancred, a celebrated Shakespearian actor, has arranged to have his portrait painted by Agatha Troy wife of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. She's rather glad to be stepping out of Alleyn's shadow, and when Ancred is killed at his own birthday party, Troy tries sleuthing on her own. But she's got a family full of suspects to contend with, and is pleased at last to hand things over to Alleyn.

Colour Scheme is set during World War II at a mud-baths resort in New Zealand run by Colonel Claire. His business is on the brink of being taken over by a local blowhard who may be a Nazi spy. Inspector Alleyn has been sent to the resort to sort things out. But he's in disguise, and even the canniest readers will have trouble picking him out from the resort's motley cast of characters.

It's murder at a country-house party; a Christmas party, in fact, where all the guests are eccentric, and all the household staff are former criminals. Which of them caused the disappearance of one of the players in the holiday pageant? Luckily, both Inspector Alleyn and his wife, Agatha Troy, are on hand to wrap up the case.

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 of condolence before the body was found? And how did Mr. Cartell inspire such violence? Yes he was boring and stuffy, but who would kill a man for the crime of being a bad conversationalist?

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 quiet farm?

It's murder in the little English village, but the two local spinsters, Miss Campanula, the victim, and Miss Prentice, her friend who may have been the intended victim, are not exactly the beloved little old ladies of song and story. They were (and are) waspish, gossiping snobs, passionate only about their own narrowly defined religion....and, perhaps, about the local vicar. But could they have been sufficiently unpleasant to provoke a murderer?

Inspector Roderick Alleyn has to date confined his investigations to England, but Vintage Murder finds him journeying to New Zealand (Ngaio Marsh's homeland). Traveling with Alleyn are the members of the Carolyn Dacres English Comedy Company. The actors' operatic intrigues offer an amusing diversion until, unexpectedly, they turn deadly. And Alleyn learns - not for the last time - that while he may be able to leave his badge back in Blighty, he's still a policeman, even on the other side of the world.

The killingly aristocratic Lamprey family exemplifies charm, wit, and a chronic lack of funds. Their only source of hope is the wealthy but unpleasant Lord Wutherwood, and the Lampreys may perhaps be forgiven for doing a little jig when his Lordship is killed and the resulting inheritance saves their bacon. Inspector Roderick Alleyn wouldn't dream of judging the Lampreys' joy. But he would like to figure out whether they murdered their benefactor.

Lord Pastern and Baggot is a classic English eccentric, given to passionate, peculiar enthusiasms. His latest? Drumming in a jazz band. His wife is not amused, and even less so when her daughter falls hard for Carlos Rivera, the band's sleazy piano player. Aside from the young woman, nobody likes Rivera very much, so there's a wealth of suspects when he is shot in during a performance. Happily, Inspector Alleyn is in the audience.

Photo Finish's dead diva, the soprano Isabella Sommita, was so widely loathed that the problem is less a lack of plausible suspects than an embarrassment of options. Though the grand country-house - and with it, the country-house murder - was history by 1980, when Photo Finish was originally published, Dame Ngaio got around the problem by setting the story on a lavish island estate, cut off from the mainland by a sudden storm. Happily, Inspector Alleyn is among the guests, and can take charge in the coppers' absence. The penultimate book in the series, Photo Finish is also one of only four books set in Marsh's native New Zealand.

The shabby Vulcan theater is not where Martyn Tarne hoped to work when she moved from New Zealand to London to pursue an acting career. But 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 surprisingly gracious grande dame. There is, of course, a murder, so--enter Inspector Alleyn.

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 a trout at his side--everyone is dreadfully upset, but really, just a tad irritated as well: Murder is so awfully messy. Thank gawd that nice Inspector Alleyn is on hand to clear things up.