Аннотация

Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime’s first book, the fourth volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteriesSURFEIT OF LAMPREYS The Lampreys were a peculiar family. They entertained their guests with charades – like rich Uncle Gabriel, who was always such a bore. The Lampreys thought if they jollied him up he would bail them out of poverty again. But Uncle Gabriel meets a violent end, and Chief Inspector Alleyn had to work out which of them killed him…DEATH AND THE DANCING FOOTMAN It begins as an entertainment: eight people, many of them adversaries, gathered for a winter weekend by a host with a love for theatre. It ends in snowbound disaster. Everyone has an alibi – and a motive as well. But Roderick Alleyn soon realizes that it all hangs on Thomas, the dancing footman…COLOUR SCHEME It was a horrible death -lured into a pool of boiling mud and left to die. Roderick Alleyn, far from home on a wartime quest for enemy agents, knows that any number of people could have killed him: the English exiles he'd hated, the New Zealanders he'd despised, or the Maoris he'd insulted. Even the spies he'd thwarted…

Аннотация

Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime’s first book, the second volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries.DEATH IN ECSTASY Who slipped cyanide into the ceremonial wine of ecstasy at the House of the Sacred Flame? The other initiates and the High Priest claim to be above earthly passions. But Roderick Alleyn discovers that the victim had provoked lust and jealousy, and he suspects that more evil still lurks behind the Sign of the Sacred Flame…VINTAGE MURDER New Zealand theatrical manager Alfred Meyer is planning a surprise for his wife's birthday – a jeroboam of champagne descending gently onto the stage after the performance. But, as Roderick Alleyn witnesses, something goes horribly wrong. Is the death the product of Maori superstitions – or something more down to earth?ARTISTS IN CRIME It starts as an art exercise – the knife under the drape, the pose outlined in chalk. But when Agatha Troy returns to her class, the scene has been re-enacted: the model is dead, fixed in the most dramatic pose Troy has ever seen. It's a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. Is the woman he loves really a murderess…?

Аннотация

Another classic Ngaio Marsh novel.At first it looked as if Sybil Foster had intentionally left the world: with two husbands dead, a daughter marrying the wrong man and – it later appeared – a debilitating disease, it was no wonder she took her own life.But no one believed she was the type – especially Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn. For the field was ripe with unfortunate engagements – one of them a very grave mistake…