Roderick Alleyn mysteries

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 new and especially exciting version of that beloved parlor entertainment, The Murder Game...

A game of darts does involve some danger, but it's rarely lethal. There are exceptions, however, like the famous barrister who was enjoying a pint at the Plume of Feathers pub, and is now residing at the morgue. But Inspector Roderick Alleyn has a growing hunch that this peculiar "accident" can be traced to an old legal case ...

Flossie Rubrick, a highly opinionated and influential member of the New Zealand Parliament, was last seen heading off to one of the storage sheds on her sheep farm. Three weeks later, she turned up dead and packed in a bale of her own wool. What happened on the night of her long-ago disappearance? In the country on counterespionage duty, Inspector Roderick Alleyn is happy to lend a hand.

Inspector Roderick Alleyn has decamped for the South of France on a family vacation-though for him, the vacation will involve some 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 ...

The village of South Mardian likes the old ways. The very old ways. This may be 1957, but South Mardian still features a blacksmith, a village idiot, and an elaborate fertility ritual performed at the winter solstice. There's squabbling, of course, and worse-like when one of the ritual's main players is found beheaded, everything north of his neck having been neatly lopped off by a ritual sword. Inspector Alleyn does have to contain a certain incredulous...

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 one of the eccentric guests have been involved?...

Ricky Alleyn, son of the renowned police detective Roderick Alleyn, has taken himself to a secluded island to write a novel. Or think about writing a novel. Or look for distractions so he can avoid writing a novel. The distractions abound, mostly in the form of colorful local characters, so all is beer and skittles until Ricky stumbles across a murder and then gets himself kidnapped. Naturally his father rushes to the island to save the day ...