Bookbot

Ngaio Marsh

    23 avril 1895 – 18 février 1982

    Ngaio Marsh était une maîtresse conteuse dont les romans policiers sont imprégnés de sa profonde appréciation pour le théâtre et la peinture. Sur une carrière de cinquante ans, elle a créé des mystères complexes, présentant l'inoubliable détective Roderick Alleyn. Les œuvres de Marsh explorent souvent les mondes dramatiques de la scène et de l'atelier d'art, mêlant suspense et observations perspicaces de la nature humaine. Son style distinctif et sa profondeur thématique ont solidifié son héritage en tant que figure de proue de l'âge d'or du roman policier.

    Ngaio Marsh
    Grands détectives: La mort en embuscade
    Un vrai crime d'artiste
    La Mort en gants blancs
    L’assassin aux fleurs
    10 18 grands détectives: Croisière mortelle
    Comme à Rome
    • Comme à Rome

      • 286pages
      • 11 heures de lecture

      Death on a Guided Tour 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. It included a superannuated jetsetter and her junkie nephew, a bad-tempered, ultra-British major, a boisterous Baron and Baroness, and an extremely reticent best-selling author. 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. Superintendent 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… (Publisher’s description)

      Comme à Rome
      4,3
    • Five Days Out of Time … that was how the ad had described the Zodiac cruise on the “weirdly misted” English river. The passengers were the usual, unusual lot: a couple of unpleasantly hygienic Americans, an aloof Ethiopian doctor, a snooping cleric with a wall-eye, an artist running away from her success… But they were not all what they seemed. For Inspector Alleyn knew that one of them was the faceless “Jampot”—the ruthless killer who could take on any personality, whose thumb was a deadly weapon. The problem was, which one ? Alleyn had five days to trap him, or the other passengers would pay with their lives—and one of those passengers was Alleyn’s wife!

      10 18 grands détectives: Croisière mortelle
      4,1
    • Grands détectives: La mort en embuscade

      • 382pages
      • 14 heures de lecture

      Réunir, dans le huis clos de son vieux manoir enneigé, sept personnes qui se détestent cordialement, tisser une subtile toile de rancoeurs inexprimées et de secrets morbides, Jonathan Royal trouve l'idée amusante. Mais lorsque sa mise en scène tourne au drame, il n'a de cesse que de faire arrêter le coupable. Il sait exactement lequel de ses invités a commis l'ignoble crime. Arrivé sur place, l'inspecteur Alleyn procède pourtant à la redistribution des rôles...

      Grands détectives: La mort en embuscade
    • Atterrés, les fidèles du temple de la Flamme Sacrée contemplent le corps inerte de Miss Cara Quayne. Que s'est-il passé ? Pourtant, la cérémonie avait bien commencé. Chacun des adeptes avait bu dans la coupe de vin sacré, avec l'espoir d'entrer enfin en extase... Mais qui sont donc ces gens ? Des mystiques drogués, les victimes d'une énorme mascarade ou des criminels diaboliques ? Autant de questions que se pose notre très élégant et séduisant inspecteur Roderick Alleyn.

      Collection Nuit - 4: Mort en extase
    • Jove Mystery: Hand In Glove

      • 239pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      Who had a hand in the murder of a country gent? All manner of friction fills the English country house shared by genteel retiree Percival Pyke Period and fuddy-duddy lawyer Harry Cartell. Until one of them, after a flamboyant dowager's treasure hunt party, is found murdered-face down in the mire of an open drain. Which of Superintendent Roderick Alleyn's suspects-linked by a tangled set of relationships-wore a crucial, missing pair of gloves to commit this dirty deed?

      Jove Mystery: Hand In Glove
      3,5
    • Black beech and honeydew

      an autobiography

      The new series of Ngaio Marsh editions concludes with a new edition of her autobiography. What sort of person was Ngaio Marsh, whose detective novels made her name known throughout the world? With all the insight and sense of style her readers have come to expect of her, her autobiography reveals the influences and environment that have shaped her personality. Widely acclaimed when first published in 1965, Black Beech and Honeydew is a sensitive account of Ngaio Marsh's childhood and adolescence in Christchurch and the establishment of her theatre and writing careers both there and in the UK. It captures all the joys, fears and hopes of a spirited young woman growing up and transmits an artist's gradual awareness of the special flavour of life in New Zealand and the individual character of its landscape. Fully revised and updated in 1981, this new edition is reissued 21 years later as a commemoration of Ngaio Marsh's life and work. It is a sanguine, poised, unpretentious, thoughtful and often moving record of a full life, and -- despite its unavailability for nearly 20 years -- has been acclaimed as her most distinguished work. No one who had read and enjoyed any of Ngaio Marsh's 32 novels can afford to overlook this gifted and charming autobiography.

      Black beech and honeydew
      3,5
    • Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime's first book, the tenth volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries.

      Black As He's Painted / Last Ditch / Grave Mistake
      4,2
    • Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime's first book, the fifth volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries.

      Died in the Wool / Final Curtain / Swing, Brother, Swing
      4,1
    • Photo Finish

      • 264pages
      • 10 heures de lecture

      The murder of a famous opera soprano finds Inspector Alleyn crawling around backstage in her life, interviewing agents, past lovers, servants, and others hoping to learn who dispatched La Sommita with her own stiletto.

      Photo Finish
      4,0
    • Penguin Crime: Final Curtain

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      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 unfortunate family fracas, Troy enlists the impeccable aid of her husband to determine who among a cast of players would have a motive for murder -- and the theatrical gift to carry it out.

      Penguin Crime: Final Curtain
      3,8
    • Killer Dolphin

      • 247pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      The discovery of a piece of authentic Shakespearean memorabilia leads to a murder at the recently reopened Dolphin theater and Inspector Alleyn investigates

      Killer Dolphin
      4,0
    • Celebrating 75 years since the debut of the Empress of Crime, this second volume of omnibus editions compiles the complete series of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries. Fans of detective fiction will appreciate the collection's depth, showcasing the evolution of the beloved character and the intricate plots that have captivated readers over decades.

      Vintage Murder / Death in Ecstasy / Artists in Crime
      4,0
    • Mary Bellamy, ageing darling of the London stage, holds a 50th-birthday party - a gala where she has assembled everyone who loves her and fears her power. Then someone uses a deadly insect spray on Mary instead of the azaleas. Superintendent Alleyn investigates.

      False Scent
      3,8
    • Death in a White Tie

      • 336pages
      • 12 heures de lecture

      Debutantes and chaperones were planning their luncheons, teas, dinners, balls. And the blackmailer was planning his strategies, stalking his next victim. But Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn knew that something was up. He had already planted his friend Lord Robert Gospell at the scene.

      Death in a White Tie
      4,0
    • Ngaio Marsh's bestselling and ingenious third novel remains one of the most popular pieces of crime fiction of all time.

      The Nursing Home Murder
      3,8
    • "Lord Pastern and Baggot (yes, that's one person) is a classic English eccentric, given to passionate, peculiar enthusiasms. His latest? Drumming in a jazz band. His rather stuffy wife is not amused, and even less so when her daughter falls hard for Carlos Rivera, the band's sleazy piano accordionist. Aside from the young woman, nobody likes Rivera very much, so there's a wealth of suspects when he is shot in the middle of a performance. Happily, Inspector Alleyn is in the audience, ready solve the murder, soothe Lord P & B, and generally get everyone back on beat. Who knew he was such a jazzbo?"--Back cover.

      Swing, Brother Swing
      3,6
    • A Grave Mistake

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      A spa stay turns into a homicidal holiday... 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.

      A Grave Mistake
      3,9
    • Overture to Death

      • 248pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      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.

      Overture to Death
      3,8
    • Artists in Crime

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      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 the class, the pose has been re-enacted in earnest. The model will never move again. It’s a difficult case for Inspector Alleyn. He’s in love with Agatha Troy, but no one can be above suspicion...

      Artists in Crime
      3,9
    • A Surfeit of Lampreys

      • 304pages
      • 11 heures de lecture

      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...

      A Surfeit of Lampreys
      3,8
    • Spinsters in Jeopardy

      • 255pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      For Inspector Roderick Alleyn, the trip was to be official; for his family, a Mediterranean romp. But a plot torn from the pages of a gothic novel soon engulfed them all. Alleyn's son was kidnapped. A very wealthy spinster was murdered. And in an eerie chateau, carved out of the Riviera mountainside, Alleyn faced the ultimate jet-set cult.

      Spinsters in Jeopardy
      3,0
    • 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. The stage was set for one of Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn's most baffling cases

      Enter a Murderer
      3,6
    • Night at the Vulcan

      • 255pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      It's more than opening night jitters. The leading man is found dead after the very first performance. Was it suicide or homicide? Scotland Yard's Inspector Roderick Alleyn takes center stage in the investigation of the unlucky actor's dramatic demise. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

      Night at the Vulcan
      3,7
    • Last Ditch

      • 221pages
      • 8 heures de lecture

      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 Roderick Alleyn is when his young son Ricky becomes involved—right up to his considerably endangered neck...

      Last Ditch
      3,3
    • The owner of the Dolphin Theatre is putting on a production of Macbeth, the play that always brings bad luck. One night, the claymore swings and the dummy's head is more than real. Luckily, Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn is in the audience.

      Light Thickens
      3,5
    • A touring theatre company in New Zealand forms the basis of one of Marsh's most ambitious and innovative novels.

      Vintage Murder
      3,5
    • Money in the Morgue

      • 336pages
      • 12 heures de lecture

      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.

      Money in the Morgue
      3,5
    • Bodies from the Library 4

      • 416pages
      • 15 heures de lecture

      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.

      Bodies from the Library 4
      3,5
    • Tied Up in Tinsel

      • 224pages
      • 8 heures de lecture

      When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected - and suspicion falls on the guests. The very thought that such a respectable bunch would commit murder seems like a heresy.

      Tied Up in Tinsel
      3,4
    • Off with His Head

      • 255pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      “I didn’t reckon to be flustered “, said Carey, “but this flustered me, proper. Partly, no doubt, it was the way the Guiser was got up. Like a clown with the tunic thing pulled up. It’d have been over his head if—well, never mind. He didn’t paint his face but he had one of these masks. So he looked, if you can follow me, gentlemen, like a kind of doll that the head had come off of. There was the body, sort of doubled up, and there was the head, two feet away, grinning, which was right nasty...”

      Off with His Head
      3,5
    • The charismatic president of Ng'ombwana in Africa has enemies of every stripe--from ex-colonists to new rivals, from dispossessed businessmen to racist crackpots. But when a ceremonial spear deals death at the president's lavish embassy party in London, Superintendent Roderick Alleyn must decipher the victim's last utterance and expose the assassin.

      Black As He's Painted
      3,4
    • It's true, darts is nobody's idea of a low-risk amusement, yet it is rarely lethal. Tell that to the famous barrister who was enjoying a pint at the Plume of Feathers pub, and is now residing at the morgue. Inspector Roderick Alleyn has a growing hunch that the peculiar "accident" can be traced to an old legal case.

      Death at the Bar
      3,2
    • Děj detektivního příběhu Ngaio Marshové se tentokrát odehrává na malém cornwallském ostrůvku v Lamanšském průlivu, kde pomůže ponoření do pramene vody malému prostoduchému chlapci, jenž má plné ruce bradavic. Celá vesnice založí na údajně léčivém prameni svou prosperitu, ale šarlatánství s tím spojené se nelíbí staré slečně Prideové, jež ostrov zdědila a chce vše vrátit do starých kolejí.Po svém příjezdu se však stává terčem nebezpečných útoků a nakonec dochází k záměně osob a k surové vraždě, kterou za přispění místní policie opět vyřeší schopný a elegantní superintendant ze Scotland Yardu Roderick Alleyn, bývalý žák a starý přítel slečny Prideové.

      Mrtvá voda
      4,7
    • Das malerische englische Dörfchen Swevenings ist ein kleines Paradies - bis einer seiner Bewohner auf unnatürliche Weise ums Leben kommt. Colonel Cartarette war leidenschaftlicher Angler, und während er seinem Hobby nachging, ist er wohl auch ermordet worden. So vermutet jedenfalls Inspektor Roderick Alleyn von Scotland Yard. Denn neben dem Toten lag eine prächtige Forelle - die einzige Spur, die Inspektor Alleyn schließlich zum Täter führt ...

      Stumme Zeugen
      4,5
    • Kniha obsahuje tři případy : 1. Vražda po plese — přeložila Hana Knížková. 2. Smrt v Delfínu — přeložila Olga Rychlíková. 3. Nedokončený portrét — přeložila Hana Knížková. Doslov „Třetí dáma zločinu“ napsala Hana Knížková. Vydání první.

      Třikrát superintendent Alleyn
      4,3
    • Populárna spisovateľka novozélandského pôvodu Ngaio Marshová sa radí medzi úspešné autorky klasického detektívneho žánru, ako sú Agatha Christie a Dorothy Sayersová. Medzi zvláštnosti jej štýlu patrí zvýšený dôraz na vykreslenie charakterov a prostredia často ešte prv, ako dôjde k tragédii. Vo všetkých troch príbehoch vystupuje inšpektor Scotland Yardu Alleyn, ktorý v spolupráci s inšpektorom Foxom rozuzľuje zamotané prípady za pomoci svojej pohotovosti a bystrého úsudku. Prvý príbeh Vrah na scéne sa odohráva v zákulisí divadla, kde priamo pred očami divákov prichádza k vražde. V druhom príbehu Smrť v taxíku autorka vniká do kruhov londýnskej smotánky. Vydieranie, ktoré sa končí smrťou, vyvolá veľký rozruch v spoločnosti aj na Scotland Yarde. Tretí príbeh Posledná opona tematicky opäť začiera do hereckého prostredia s čudáckou rodinou, sídliacou na starom zámku. Prednosťou rozprávačského umenia Marshovej je najmä sugestívne vystihnutie atmosféry umocnené pôsobivým udržiavaním napätia.

      3x inšpektor Alleyn
      4,2
    • Klasický detektivní román se odehrává během 2. světové války na Novém Zélandu, kam přijíždí anglický policejní inspektor spolupracovat na případu špionáže. Vrchní inspektor Alleyn přijíždí v roce 1943 na Nový Zéland, aby odhalil pachatele záhadné a brutální vraždy manželky majitele ovčí farmy a zároveň pomohl místní policii v pátrání po špionáži. Obou úkolů se jako obvykle zhostí s úspěchem a nakonec jen taktak unikne vražednému útoku na svou osobu. Vedle zdařilé zápletky vyniká tento detektivní román mistrným prokreslením charakterů, zachycením života na Novém Zélandu za 2. světové války a překrásnými popisy novozélandské horské přírody.

      Smrt na ovčí farmě
      4,1
    • Detektivní příběh z divadelního prostředí přináší čtenáři efektivní zápletku s vraždou na jevišti uprostřed divadelního představení.

      Vejde vrah
      4,0