A Shakespearean actor shuffles off his mortal coil in this "skillfully wrought" country-house mystery (The New York Times). Sir Henry Ancred, a celebrated Shakespearean actor, has arranged to have his portrait painted by Agatha Troy, wife of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. But when Ancred is killed at his own birthday party, leaving behind a family full of suspects, Troy's work ends and Inspector Alleyn's begins ...

Superintendent Alleyn's old school chum, nicknamed the "Boomer," has become the president of the newly emerged African nation of Ng'ombwana, newly emerged in the wake of colonialism. Old school ties being what they are, his friend-making an official visit to London-insists that Alleyn handle his security, rather than Her Majesty's Special Branch. The Special Branch is not best pleased about this, as the Boomer is known to have some very deadly enemies,...

Something goes murderously wrong during the final scene of Macbeth when a giant Scottish battle sword is used for the fight scene.

Upper Quintern is the sort of Little English Village that is home mostly to the very rich and the servants who make their lives delightful. But Sybil Foster's life is not delightful; exhausted from her various family stresses-- a daughter, for instance, who wants to marry a man without a title! ? Sybil takes herself off to a local hotel that specializes in soothing shattered nerves. When she's killed, Inspector Alleyn has a real puzzler on his hands....

Inspector Alleyn just wants to write a letter to his wife, but World War II, for one, keeps intruding. It's war-work, after all, that has brought Alleyn to this seedy hospital in New Zealand's hinterlands, and it's the war that has left the hospital swimming in convalescing soldiers - noisy, often drunk, and always over-interested in the nurses. Nor is the weather helping. A storm has killed the electrical power, leaving Alleyn, the soldiers, the...