A Man Lay Dead

By Ngaio Marsh

Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime’s first book, the first volume of the 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries.

Sir Hubert Handesley's extravagant weekend house-parties are deservedly famous for his exciting Murder Game. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse with a real dagger in the back. All seven suspects have skilful alibis – so Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn has to figure out the whodunit…

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Sep 3, 2009
• ISBN: 9780007344390

Ngaio Marsh

Dame Ngaio Marsh was born in New Zealand in 1895 and died in February 1982. She wrote over 30 detective novels and many of her stories have theatrical settings, for Ngaio Marsh’s real passion was the theatre. She was both an actress and producer and almost single-handedly revived the New Zealand public’s interest in the theatre. It was for this work that the received what she called her ‘damery’ in 1966.

Reviews for A Man Lay Dead

[lindaweeks · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not the most engaging of her books

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very typical of older English mysteries (consider the author)...Reminiscent of Christie. There are not many clear clues to go upon....but it's good none the less. I will read more by this author.

Nigel & his Rupert are invited to a "Murder Party" at the country estate of Sir Hubert Handesly....Unfortunately for Rupert he becomes the victim of a very real murderer. There is also a subplot of a Russian "brotherhood", which adds to the intrigue.

If you like old time "Classic" mysteries, then Ngaio Marsh is for you.

[wdwilson3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Well, it was her first...Detective: Alleyn is OK as a sleuth, but seems to involve the possible suspects in a lot of risky business. Not according to the Scotland Yard manual.Plot: Motive OK, method preposterous. Outlandish Russian cult irrelevant and also preposterous.Dialogue: Tedious 1934 upper-class English at times, dialects (Russian and lower-class) heavy handed. Some of the allusions and catch phrases of the time would, I'm sure, puzzle a modern Brit as much as this Yank.

[gogglemiss · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

OK read. I thought, I wasn't going to like this, but the characters were very readable. It was obvious who was going to be bumped off, but I just went with the flow of who dunnit.

[jeffome · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first of Marsh's Roderick Alleyn - Scotland Yard Detective series. Enjoyable adventure in a country house weekend party gone awry. Some Russian gang violence thrown in for a bit of confusion, in fact so much so that i lost some interest. A nice old Bentley and fast British sports car play some minor roles, which always makes me happy. And eventually, we witness Alleyn and his nontraditional methodology conquer the bad guy. These always seem interesting, fun and quick, and i will continue to gather up more to complete my set of all of them.

[Priya · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Was pleased to find another series of books like Hercule Poirot of Agatha Christie. The Inspector's witty comebacks are entertaining and the revelation of the murderer is well written.

[eas7788 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Pretty slight. Offensive use of the n word. Not a very solveable mystery.

[bettesbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first book of the Ngaio Marsh series featuring Scotland Yard’s Inspector Roderick Alleyn. He is called to a county house party where the entertainment is the newest rage “the Murder Game”. As the guests prepared for dinner the lights went out! When they come back on a body lies in the front hallway! The “trial” is ready to be played … but it is not a game .. a man is dead. Roderick Alleyn, smooth and debonair, not your usual policeman who drops his ‘aitches. But the reader is not given his back story, only hints, such as his accent is Oxonian, and there was a brilliant man at Oxford is he related? He pretends to be forgetful and not sure of procedures and charges, but when you observe him closely you see this is not true. A complex character, a fast-flowing story, a murder, and clues to think through; all the elements I enjoy when reading a murder mystery!

[lara335 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I love a country-house murder-mystery, so looking forward to this by one of the queens of crime fiction. Hadn't read her before, and not overly impressed by this first outing. A lack of description, and not much scene-setting, and some daft business with a Bolshevik secret society. But enough of a puzzle that I will probably attempt another.

[missizicks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this. It was my first reading of a Marsh novel, having concentrated on Christie in the past. The writing is witty and the characters very believable. Chief Inspector Alleyn is a sharp man who tries to dissemble his cleverness while reading his suspects. I liked him instantly as a character. The crime was a classic - hateful womanising bachelor who has numerous beneficiaries on his death, some of whom have good reason for wanting him dead, attends house party in the country with those beneficiaries - with an added sprinkling of Russian intrigue. I recommend it if you're a fan of Golden Age crime and like me haven't explored much beyond Christie. I'll be reading more Marsh now.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

2.5**

The first mystery novel by Marsh introduces Inspector Detective Roderick Alleyn. At Sir Hubert Handesley’s country house party, five guests have gathered for a parlor game of “Murder.” It’s all in fun, until the lights come back on and there is an actual corpse. Given the prominence of the household, Scotland Yard is called in. By the time Alleyn arrives from London the victim’s body has been moved, everyone has an alibi, and the butler has gone missing.

I can clearly see how Marsh became known as one of the “Queens of Crime” alongside Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie. However, I found this to be slow-moving and unnecessarily complicated by a side plot involving sedition and Russian spies. There are a few nods to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, which I did appreciate, and a budding romance which I did not.

I’m glad I finally read something by Marsh; not sure if I’ll read another.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm not wildly enthused about Ngaio Marsh and Inspector Alleyn, at this point. It's a smooth enough read, but the murder is a little haphazardly imagined: some elements of it suggest premeditation, while others suggest a crime of opportunity, but it has to be one or the other or it just doesn't work. Too much depends on opportunity -- the availability of the weapon, the position of the murdered man, the way the murder game turns out -- and yet the rest of it smacks of pre-meditation: the bizarre way the murderer sneaks downstairs to do it, planning out what gloves to use, arranging an alibi... And then there's the whole mess of the Russian secret society plot. Just... what?!I can't say I really cared much about any of the characters. Alleyn seems... weirdly mercurial, but not in a believable way, flipping personalities more often than you'd change clothes. I don't understand him a bit. And Nigel Bathgate is just too bland: a Watson type of sidekick who makes silly mistakes and can't figure anything out.I know I didn't like Peter Wimsey incredibly much the first time I read Whose Body?, so I'm giving this series more of a chance, but I'm not sure I'll go beyond the three books I have. So many books, so little time.

[librarycin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A group of people are invited to a house party where there will be a game of Murder played. Unfortunately, there ends up being a real murder instead of just a game. The premise was interesting and the book was o.k. There are a lot of characters to get to know, but I had a tendency to lose interest, so I wasn't able to keep good track of who was who. I found it interesting that the book followed the point of view, not of the inspector (who is apparently featured in a number of books by Marsh), but of one of the guests. It was quick to read, though.

[meredy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Six-word review: Cheerfully outlandish cozy delivers comfy quickie.Extended review:Ngaio Marsh's first Inspector Alleyn mystery, and my first Ngaio Marsh, is everything we look for in a British detective yarn of the golden 1930s. A house party at a country estate takes a ghastly turn when one of the guests is found with a knife in his back, and no one is above suspicion. Secret romances, jealous triangles, Russian conspirators, and watchful domestics keep the pages turning while a clever sleuth ferrets clues and sets traps. What more could we ask?

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

 I've not read any of Marsh's books before, which would seem odd seeing as they are firmly in the between wars period of great detective fiction, and I've read a number in this period. Unlike Sayers & Christie, Marsh's detective is actually in the police, although Detective Alleyn is clearly not a man to be pigeonholed. The setting is a country house party and the guests were playing murderers. Only it wasn't someone fooling they found at the bottom of the stairs. The investigation goes along maybe a little oddly - the mock investigation and trial by the guests of themselves was very unusual. However Alleyn is personable enough and arrives at just the right time to unravel the many strands of the mystery. I think I'll be interested to see quite where the series leads.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first in the Inspector Roderick Alleyn series, A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh was published in 1934 and established another great mystery series during that genre’s golden age. The setting is a weekend house party where the guests are getting ready to play the popular game of Murder, but when the lights are turned back on, one of the party is lying dead in the hall. Scotland Yard’s Inspector Alleyn is dispatched to investigate as this case is a real puzzler with all the guests being able to account for their whereabouts. Not only is Alleyn able to figure out who the murderer is, he also is able to shut down a ring of Bolshevik conspirators.As the introduction to this series, A May Lay Dead is an entertaining read but not particularly outstanding. The actual murder method was, however, most ingenious and that, along with the classic gathering of all suspects for the big reveal at the end gave the book a fun edge. About her main character, Marsh seemed a little unsure, but I suspect Alleyn’s character gets developed more fully as the series moves along. I am a fan of mysteries written during this time period, and I will definitely be continuing on with this series if only to see how and where Ngaio Marsh fits into the hierarchy of Christie, Sayers and Tey, etc.

[themulhern · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very superficial country house investigation. The forced whimsicality is just awful and Alleyn's snottiness is unbearable. The casualness with which people who have published pamphlets attacking the government can be arrested makes one really value the Bill of Rights of one's own country. The whole Communist subplot is woefully dumb. The obligatory romance is just pathetic. The mystery itself is not bad at all, but the unmasking of the murderer is ridiculous. This was published between the two world wars (1934), but WWII is not on the mind of any of the guests.Michael Innes did this so much better. Even, e.g. Hamlet, Revenge! (1937), which does contain a romance is so much more interesting.

[rubyscarlett-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is closer to 4 stars, really, but I think Alleyn could have been developed better. The country house mystery is very good though I would have appreciated more humour. Will definitely read more, it's not outstanding but it's a cut above the rest, for sure.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At a house party with a mix of guests there's a murder game planed which turns terribly messy when the body turns out to be really dead. . Inspector Alleyn is called and with the help of a young journalist and one of the young ladies at the party he investigates.Intermingled with some dastardly Russian plotting! The Russians are is very cliched and the accents... the less said the better. But a product of it's time and quite a good read for all that. I enjoyed it and the characters.

[lahochstetler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a classic, country house murder mystery, and the first of the Alleyn mysteries. I really think Marsh is at her best writing this sort of English countryside whodunit. A weekend house party leads to a body with a ceremonial dagger thrust in its back. In the house there are blossoming relationships, some mysterious Russians, a secret brotherhood, and Alleyn is called in to investigate. The result is a fast-moving and satisfying mystery.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having just reread this for the first time in a long while, I found it interesting to see how Chief Inspector Alleyn has changed over the course of the series. This isn't Marsh's best, but it is still a extremely enjoyable English country house murder mystery.

[vivl_6 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the mystery, which as always was well written and interesting, but missed the more fully developed characters of Alleyn & Fox from the later novels.

[wealhtheowwylfing · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

A young reporter is enjoying an upper-class British house party when abruptly, someone is found dead!

I can't say I enjoyed this. There's an entire subplot concerning a Bolshevic satanic cult (?!) that goes nowhere, and isn't even an effective red herring. This is the first Inspector Alleyn book, and it's clear that Marsh isn't sure how to write him yet. His personality is all over the place: one moment he's burbling Bright Young Things slang, the next he's cold and remote, the next he's romantically morose. It doesn't read like a complex character so much as one without any fixed characterization. The mystery itself is very frustrating, because there's no way it should have worked. The murderer springs out of the bath, pulls on gloves, slides down a bannister face-first, yoinks a dagger conveniently nearby, and stabs his victim who just so happens to be standing with his back directly in front of the bannister? No one on earth would plan a murder that way! And there's no way that Alleyn figured out that the murderer did it that way, when his only evidence was that the murderer wore a glove! How does that prove that someone slid down the bannister face-first, let alone which person did it? Ridiculous!

I'll try one more Marsh book, by virtue of her reputation, and then I think I'll call it quits.

[paradiseporch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A MAN LAY DEAD by Ngaio Marsh (Vintage Mystery Fiction, 1930s England) 3.5 star ratingSomehow, as I was growing up and cutting teeth on Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen, I missed knowing about New Zealand writer Ngaio Marsh. I love how the Web has made the world so small! I started to read Marsh with Death of a Fool in January of this year. I was intrigued enough to start at the beginning and find this first in the series (1934) featuring Inspector Roderick Alleyn.I must confess that, although I remember enjoying reading this, I cannot remember a single thing about it except that there were a number of upper class, foolish people (I think it was this book) and that Inspector Alleyn is a fascinating man.Alleyn produced from his pocket his inevitable and rather insignificant Woolworth note-book.“Meet my brain,” he said, “without it I’m done.”No doubt, today it would be an iGadget but since I still use a paper notebook, I’m glad he “lived” when he did. I’m going to continue reading this series.Read this if: you want to start reading at the beginning of Marsh’s writing career, and make an introduction to Roderick Alleyn. 3½ stars

[nordie_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At Sir Hubert Handesley's country house party, five guests have gathered for the uproarious parlor game of "Murder." Yet no one is laughing when the lights come up on an actual corpse, the good-looking and mysterious Charles Rankin. Scotland Yard's Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives to find a complete collection of alibis, a missing butler, and an intricate puzzle of betrayal and sedition in the search for the key player in this deadly game

Cant believe I've read so many Alleyn books, but have taken this long to get to read #1.

This book starts with Nigel Bathgate, junior reporter and ongoing stalwart of the series, being invited to a country house weekend with his cousin. There he meets Angela, and a number of other characters, and during a game of "murders" finds his cousin murdered with a knife in his back.

Alleyn arrives to investigate, still young and an Inspector (somehow morphing into the better known CHIEF inspector near the end of the book. The other usual cast - such as Fox - dont make it into this first novel. There is a little diversion (Maguffin) over the Russian community in London, which allows for the dagger to be used in the murder.

Alleyn is a little moodier than in later novels, still being young and possibly not fleshed out as in later novels. Not sure I would have continued with the series had I come across this book first.

[nina4jon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first of the Inspector Alleyn and the first Ngaio Marsh I've read. I read it quickly, in a morning, but didn't enjoy it less because of that. It's a classic country house murder mystery where some not very nice person gets done in, in a spectacular manner. As usual there are a host of suspects, all with motives, any one of whom could have done it, except each have an alibi. The good Inspector painstakingly works his way through the clues and red herrings, the snatches of overheard conversation and the dropped buttons, until he reaches a conclusion. The clues and red herrings may not be quite as cunning and inexplicable as they are in Christie and Conan Doyle, but they're clever nonetheless and designed to catch the reader out. Recommended for anyone who enjoys a good whodunnit where the culprit is eventually revealed at the end.Nina Jon is the author of the newly released Magpie Murders, a series of short murder mysteries with a Cluedo-esque element.She is also the author of the Jane Hetherington's Adventures in Detection crime and mystery series, about private detective Jane Hetherington.

[figgles_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The very first Roderick Allyen mystery! It sits tighly within the conventions of its time (1930s) and genre (murder at a country house party, bolshevik red herrings) but is a very impressive debut and you could do far worse than introduce yourself to Roderick Alleyn than with this, his first outing...

[fourbears_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is an Agatha-Christie-type murder novel, in a country house even. The first in Marsh’s series about Inspector Alleyn. It’s not a genre that I get excited about any more frankly, but at the same time I have to admit, I didn’t figure out who was guilty before the end and that I appreciate.

[mmyoung_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Reading this I am surprised that Marsh goes on to become one of the grande dames of mystery writing. The seeds are hard to see. An utterly routine house party murder with the usual rube goldberg murder -- with a side dish of ridiculous secret societies that did nothing to advance the plot.

[smik_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is Ngaio Marsh's debut novel, a classic country house party murder mystery, where the reader is tempted to map the location of all of the characters at the location of the murder. Nigel Bathgate, with his cousin Charles Rankin, is attending his first houseparty at Frampton. He has heard these houseparties hosted by Sir Hubert Handesley are both "original" and unpretentious. There will seven or eight guests, and, upon arrival, he learns that the main event will be a Murder. Sir Hubert has his own rules for the Murder Game, and eventually a murder there is, but not the theatrically staged one they have anticipated.This is not Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's first murder case, although it is Ngaio Marsh's first novel. Alleyn is already a seasoned detective, with a reputation for thorough and careful sleuthing. His reputation preceds him. He arrives at Frampton from Scotland Yard the morning after the murder. The body has already been moved, and the local constabulary and the police doctor are already in attendance.In essence what Marsh does in this first novel is establish some of the characteristics which will become Alleyn's "signature" in subsequent novels. Alleyn does not appear as the other characters expect a detective to be. He is tall, cultured, detached, thorough, and objective. He professes to have a poor memory and keeps a small note book of important facts, with an alphabetical index. We learn that Alleyn is an Oxford man who initially became a diplomat, before turning to policing. He likes to inspect things first hand, and likes to reconstruct events until he gets them right. He may also lay traps for suspects. In A MAN LAY DEAD he decides one of the characters is innocent, and then uses him as his "Watson", not only involving him in some of the sleuthing, but also as a sounding board for his deductions. Thus we see the action often through two sets of eyes, both Alleyn's and the other characters.This is an interesting novel as Marsh has included the element of "the Russian threat". First of all there is the Russian dagger with which the victim is stabbed, then the Russian butler who disappears, the house guest who is a Russian espionage agent, and then the Russian secret society that binds them all together. A MAN LAY DEAD was published in 1934 and is indicative of the fear of Russian communism that had had Europe in its thrall for the previous decade or so.Ngaio Marsh is a New Zealander but this novel puts her right into the vein of the Golden Age writers like Agatha Christie and Margery Allingham. It is a British cozy murder mystery through and through. In A MAN LAY DEAD she is exploring a classic scenario, and bringing a new sleuth onto the crime fiction scene. There is no hint of her Antipodean origins. The language, the slang, the setting are thoroughly British.From a 21st century point of view A MAN LAY DEAD has survived 8 decades pretty well. We wouldn't put it at the top of the tree these days, because there are things that date it. Marsh was more concerned to write a carefully constructed whodunnit, and not so taken with "why". Nevertheless it is very readable.