This annual anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a short novel by Christianna Brand.
Mystery stories have been around for centuries—there are whodunits, whydunits and howdunits, including locked-room puzzles, detective stories without detectives, and crimes with a limited choice of suspects.
Countless volumes of such stories have been published, but some are still impossible to find: stories that appeared in a newspaper, magazine or an anthology that has long been out of print and unpublished stories that were absorbed into an author’s archive when they died . . .
Here for the first time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin, Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina White that inspired Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, and a complete short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some of the world’s most popular classic crime writers contains something for everyone.
Complete with indispensable biographies by Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, the fourth volume in the series Bodies from the Library once again brings into the daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown.
A collection of the BBC's dramatisations of Ngaio Marsh's most famous sleuth: Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn.
This collection would include the following works by Ngaio Marsh:
A Man Lay Dead - The gentleman detective tackles a country house party murder.
A Surfeit of Lampreys - Gentleman sleuth Inspector Alleyn probes a grisly death of the head of a spendthrift aristocratic family.
Opening Night - When a leading actor is found gassed in his dressing room, it looks like suicide. But it transpires he was so detested that everyone had a motive for his murder.
When In Rome - 1970s Rome. Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn is incognito and on the trail of a vast drugs syndicate - and some exceptionally unsavoury blackmail. But he hasn't reckoned on murder.
Roderick Alleyn is back in this unique crime novel begun by Ngaio Marsh during the Second World War and now completed by Stella Duffy in a way that has delighted reviewers and critics alike.
Shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award 2018.
It's business as usual for Mr Glossop as he does his regular round delivering wages to government buildings scattered across New Zealand's lonely Canterbury plains. But when his car breaks down he is stranded for the night at the isolated Mount Seager Hospital, with the telephone lines down, a storm on its way and the nearby river about to burst its banks.
Trapped with him at Mount Seager are a group of quarantined soldiers with a serious case of cabin fever, three young employees embroiled in a tense love triangle, a dying elderly man, an elusive patient whose origins remain a mystery ... and a potential killer.
When the payroll disappears from a locked safe and the hospital's death toll starts to rise faster than normal, can the appearance of an English detective working in counterespionage be just a lucky coincidence - or is something more sinister afoot?
The crime was committed on stage at the theatre, when an unloaded gun fired a very real bullet; the victim was an actor clawing his way to stardom using blackmail instead of talent; the suspects included two unwilling girlfriends and several relieved blackmail victims. As so the stage was set for one of Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn's most baffling cases.
When the president of Ng'ombwana proposes to dispense with the usual security arrangements on an official visit to London, his old schoolmate, Chief Superintendent Alleyn, is called in to try to persuade him otherwise. Alleyn does so. However, an assassin does strike, and Alleyn discovers a wealth of suspects residing in the very shadow of the embassy.
'Wanda McCaddon is nothing short of extraordinary in this complicated mystery dominated by multiple male characters. In fact, listeners will disregard May's gender altogether as she shifts effortlessly from one dialect to another during heated and animated conversations. Every character's eccentricity is explored and appropriately interpreted, adding spice, humor, and authenticity to a proper British mystery.''AudioFile
Who in the quiet village of Chipping would kill wealthy spinster Idris Campanula? Plenty of people'among them her fellow cast members from a troubled charity production. Miss Campanula was a spiteful gossip, gleefully destroying others' lives merely for her own excitement. But once Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives, he quickly realizes that the murderer might have killed the wrong woman'and may soon stage a repeat performance.
The quiet village of Swevenings seemed an English pastoral paradise, until the savagely beaten body of a lord was found near a tranquil stream. Suddenly, the playground of British blue-bloods has been soiled by murder and the lowest sort of intrigue. But if anyone can clean it up, it's the famous Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. Roderick Alleyn's investigation takes him through petty vendettas, an ex-commander's blend of whiskey and archery, and cocktails on the lawn with a femme fatale. But the motive he's angling for lies even deeper than the trout stream beneath the rustic bridge...
'Nadia May lovingly brings to life a myriad of characters'.[A] delightful rendering of Marsh's finely crafted classic.''AudioFile
Two detective stories featuring gentleman detective Roderick Alleyn, adapted for BBC Radio. In A Man Lay Dead, a game of murders at Sir Hubert Handesley's country house party becomes far too realistic for anyone's liking. First a guest arrives with a dangerously lethal dagger and then, when the gong sounds to announce the start of the game, the victim plays dead in a very convincing manner. Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn believes the unusual dagger is a vital clue to the real-life murder, and soon he's on the trail of a Russian secret society. In A Surfeit of Lampreys, the aristocratic Lampreys are charming but penniless - so a visit from the wealthy head of their family is greatly anticipated. However, their Uncle Gabriel isn't persuaded to part with his money and a row ensues. When a body is found in the lift leading to the Lampreys' flat, Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn finds a family immersed in hidden secrets and intrigue.
The village of South Mardian always observes the winter solstice with an ancient, mystical sword dance, complete with costumed performers. But for one of them, the excitement proves too heady, and his decapitation turns the fertility rite into a pageant of death. Now Inspector Roderick Alleyn must penetrate not only the mysteries of folklore, but the secrets and sins of an eccentric group which includes a surly blacksmith, a domineering dowager, and a not-so-simple village idiot.
Two full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of Ngaio Marsh short stories. In 'Opening Night', a leading actor is found gassed in his dressing room. It looks like suicide, until it transpires that he was widely detested. Inspector Alleyn quickly realises that almost everyone in the theatre had a motive for his murder. Jeremy Clyde stars as Inspector Alleyn. 'When in Rome' finds Inspector Alleyn joining a group of highly suspicious tourists on a visit to a Roman catacomb. The corpse he finds in an ancient sarcophagus has been very recently murdered...
An English manor house on the moors is an ideal setting for a murder-and for one of Ngaio Marsh's classic murder mysteries.
The occasion is a Christmas party hosted by Mr. Hilary Bill-Tasman, landed proprietor of Halberds Manor and authority on antiques. Santa Claus is in attendance, played by a highly unpopular servant. When he goes missing after his performance, foul play is immediately suspected. There are a number of unusual characters attending the festivities, several of whom are perfectly logical candidates for murderer-and one of whom will elude the most prescient listener until tracked down by the indefatigable Inspector Roderick Alleyn, whose wife, Troy, innocently involved him in all these sinister goings-on in the first place.
"Dame Ngaio has yet to write a mystery that is less than perfect."-Portland Oregonian
Inspector Roderick Alleyn glimpses from a train the shocking scene of a murder in progress. Thus begins his exploration of the Chateau of the Silver Goat, where death threatens a spinster-and even Alleyn's own son.
