Nel 1930 le migliori firme del giallo anglosassone fondano il Detection Club. Tra di loro, quattro scrittrici decise a fare della letteratura poliziesca un mezzo di espressione creativa ma anche un mestiere. E soprattutto pronte a elevare il genere oltre la narrativa di intrattenimento, sperimentando nuove soluzioni e fuoriuscendo dai suoi angusti confini.

Un'isolata residenza di campagna, un party natalizio, un congruo numero di partecipanti. Gli ingredienti ci sono tutti perché un delitto possa andare in scena. Le probabilità aumentano se il personale di servizio è composto interamente da assassini in cerca di riabilitazione dopo il carcere. La bizzarria della situazione lascia perplessa la pittrice Agatha Troy, invitata a dipingere il ritratto del padrone di casa, soprattutto in considerazione del fatto che è la moglie di Roderick Alleyn, sovrintendente di Scotland Yard. Quando poi il domestico di uno degli ospiti scompare durante i festeggiamenti, l'inevitabile sembra essersi verificato. Facile puntare il dito contro l'insolito staff di ex galeotti, ma è compito di un bravo investigatore non limitarsi all'ovvio e aggiungere alla lista dei sospettati tutti gli altri presenti, senza curarsi troppo della fedina penale. Proprio quello che farà Alleyn, oltre naturalmente a risolvere il caso. Perché lui è qualcosa di più che un bravo investigatore.

A collection of short stories written by Ngaio Marsh; a number of them feature Inspector Alleyn, the protagonist of Marsh's famous mystery series.

It’s 1968 and Inspector Alleyn is in Rome assisting the Italian police in the investigation of an international drug-smuggling operation. The book references both la dolce vita and student protests, bringing Marsh into the 1960s, yet the murder Alleyn solves, committed within a closed group of tourists, is firmly rooted in tradition.

Inspector Alleyn’s old school chum, the "Boomer," is now president of the new African nation of Ng’ombwana. On an official visit to London, the Boomer insists that Alleyn handle his security; a difficult task made even more so when the Ng’ombwanan ambassador is killed. Happily, not only is Alleyn up to the task, but he is assisted by a cat who proves remarkably adept at finding clues.

The impresario Peregrine Jay has fulfilled a long-cherished dream: He now owns the Dolphin Theatre, and has restored it to its former glory. To celebrate the re-opening, a no-expenses-spared production of The Glove, a new play about the discovery of a true Shakespearean accessory. London’s chattering classes are abuzz with gossip about the theatre, rumors about Peregrine, critiques of the play. But when murder takes center-stage, everyone gets very quiet.

The elderly Emily Pride is pleased to have inherited an island, yet appalled by the "Pixie Falls" spring and its reported miraculous healing properties, and especially the locals’ attempts to capitalize on the "miracles." The locals are not thrilled to give up their trade, but could their frustration have bubbled up into murderous rage? Inspector Alleyn will have to sort it out. And this time, it’s personal.

Mary Bellamy is the sweetheart of the London stage. Her fans and friends are heartbroken when somehow Mary manages to spritz herself not with her favorite perfume, but with the deadly insecticide meant to be sprayed on the azaleas. Inspector Alleyn begins by smelling something fishy (everything he learns about lovely, fragile Mary suggests that in fact she was a rather vicious battleax), but he very quickly starts smelling something different…something like a rat.

No one could doubt that Mr. Percival Pyke Period was genuinely distraught to hear that his neighbor, Harry Cartell, had turned up dead in a ditch. But how is it that Mr. Percival Pyke came to write the letter of condolence before the body was found? And how did Mr. Cartell inspire such violence? Yes he was boring and stuffy, but who would kill a man for the crime of being a bad conversationalist?

The village of South Mardian likes the old ways. This may be 1957, but South M. still features a blacksmith, a village idiot, and an elaborate fertility ritual performed at the winter solstice. There's squabbling, of course, and things come to a head when one of the ritual's main players is found be-headed, everything north of his neck having been neatly lopped off by a ritual sword.

The good ship Cape Farewell is steaming out to sea, with a passenger-list and crew fairly littered with the shifty, the twitchy, the peculiar, and the up-to-no-good. Arguably the up-to-no-goodest is a strangler with a romantic streak: He likes to leave his ladies with a flower and a charming little song. Alleyn boards the Cape at Portsmouth, determined that no one else is going to get strangled on his watch.

World War II rages on, and Inspector Alleyn continues as the Special Branch’s eyes and ears in New Zealand. While his primary brief is spy-catching, he’s also happy to help with old-fashioned policing. Flossie Rubrick, an influential Member of Parliament and the wife of a sheep farmer, is murdered. Had she made political enemies? Had a mysterious legacy prompted her death? Or could the shadowy world of international espionage have intruded on this quiet farm?

A delicious, classic country-house mystery. Sir Henry Ancred, a celebrated Shakespearian actor, has arranged to have his portrait painted by Agatha Troy wife of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. She’s rather glad to be stepping out of Alleyn's shadow, and when Ancred is killed at his own birthday party, Troy tries sleuthing on her own. But she’s got a family full of suspects to contend with, and is pleased at last to hand things over to Alleyn.

Lord Pastern and Baggot is a classic English eccentric, given to passionate, peculiar enthusiasms. His latest? Drumming in a jazz band. His wife is not amused, and even less so when her daughter falls hard for Carlos Rivera, the band’s sleazy piano player. Aside from the young woman, nobody likes Rivera very much, so there’s a wealth of suspects when he is shot in during a performance. Happily, Inspector Alleyn is in the audience.

The shabby Vulcan theater is not where Martyn Tarne hoped to work when she moved from New Zealand to London to pursue an acting career. But Martyn takes a job as dresser to the Vulcan’s leading lady. This provides her with a ringside seat to the backstage circus: the aging alcoholic actor, the waspish playwright, the surprisingly gracious grande dame. There is, of course, a murder, so--enter Inspector Alleyn.