Ngaio Marsh has 37 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 15 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 60 ratings. The most-rated is Artists in Crime.
Artists in Crime
Summary
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 is dead, fixed for ever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen. It's a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. How can he believe that the woman he loves is a murderess? And yet no one can be above suspicion.
©1938 Ngaio Marsh (P)2008 Hachette Digital
Black as He's Painted
Summary
When the exuberant president of Ng'ombwana proposes to dispense with the usual security arrangements on an official visit to London, his old schoolmate, Chief Superintendent Alleyn, is called in to persuade him otherwise. Consequently, on the night of the embassy's reception, the house and grounds are stiff with police. Nevertheless, an assassin does strike, and Alleyn finds he has no shortage of help, from Special Branch to a tribal court - and a small black cat named Lucy Lockett who out-detects them all....
©2015 Ngaio Marsh (P)2016 Hachette
When in Rome
Summary
Murder, blackmail and drug dealing on the Tiber combine in one of Ngaio Marsh’s liveliest and most evocative novels. When their guide disappears mysteriously in the depths of a Roman basilica, the members of Mr. Sebastian Mailer’s tour group seem strangely unperturbed. But when a body is discovered in an Etruscan sarcophagus, Superintendent Alleyn, in Rome incognito on the trail of an international drug racket, is very much concerned....
©1970 Original Text of 1970 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Death at the Bar
Summary
A classic Ngaio Marsh novel in which a game of darts in an English pub has gruesome consequences. At the Plume of Feathers in south Devon one midsummer evening, eight people are gathered together in the taproom. They are in the habit of playing darts, but on this occasion an experiment takes the place of the usual game - a fatal experiment which calls for investigation. A distinguished painter, a celebrated actor, a woman graduate, a plump lady from County Clare, and a Devonshire farmer all play their parts in the unravelling of the problem....
©1940 Original Text of 1940 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
False Scent
Summary
In a poisonous cloud of spray, the curtain falls on a drama queen. Little did beloved British actress Mary Bellamy know that she would be done in at her own birthday party - choked by toxic mist from the bottle of Slaypest, a deadly insecticide. Basking in the glow of her most adoring fans - who all happened to be her most duplicitous enemies - Mary would make her final performance. When Superintendent Roderick Alleyn arrives, he smells a rat amongst the contemptuous collection of theatre types detained at the party, for this case has the unmistakable scent of murder....
©1960 Original Text of 1960 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Off with His Head
Summary
Pagan revelry and morris dancing in the middle of a very cold winter set the scene for one of Ngaio Marsh’s most fascinating murder mysteries. When the pesky Anna Bünz arrives at Mardian to investigate the rare survival of folk dancing still practised there, she quickly antagonizes the villagers. But Mrs Bünz is not the only source of friction - two of the other enthusiasts are also spoiling for a fight. When the sword dancers' traditional mock beheading of the Winter Solstice becomes horribly real, Superintendent Roderick Alleyn finds himself faced with a case of great complexity and of gruesome proportions....
©1957 Original Text of 1957 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Colour Scheme
Summary
Maurice Questing was left to die in a pool of boiling mud. Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn knew 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 - if he wasn't a spy himself.
©1943 Original Text of 1943 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Swing, Brother, Swing
Summary
Lord Pastern fired his revolver. The figure in the spotlight fell, and the coup-de-theatre had become murder. Could Inspector Alleyn believe Pastern had let hatred of his future son-in-law go too far? Or would the tangle of jealousies and blackmail among the guests reveal another murderer?
©1949 Original Text of 1949 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Death at the Dolphin
Summary
The restoration of a bombed-out London theatre ends in violent death - and one of Marsh’s most vivid and dramatic novels. When the bombed-out Dolphin Theatre is given to Peregrine Jay by a mysterious wealthy patron, he is overjoyed. And when the mysterious oil millionaire also gives him a glove that belonged to Shakespeare, Peregrine displays it in the dockside theatre and writes a successful play about it. But then a murder takes place, a boy is attacked, and the glove is stolen. Could it be that oil and water don’t mix? Inspector Roderick Alleyn is determined to find out....
©1967 Original Text of 1967 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Overture to Death
Summary
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.
©1956 Ngaio Marsh (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Dead Water
Summary
The elderly Emily Pride is perfectly pleased to have inherited an island, even if her starchy pragmatism is ever so faintly appalled by the Pixie Falls spring and its reported miraculous healing properties. But really, the locals' attempts to capitalize on the 'miracles' are entirely too tacky - Ye Olde Gift Shoppe, the neon signs…not on Miss Emily’s watch, thank you. Of course, the locals are not exactly thrilled to give up their trade (Pixie Falls may be merely be known for healing warts, it’s true, but you take your shillings where you can find them). Could their frustration have bubbled up into murderous rage? Inspector Alleyn will have to sort it out. And this time, it’s personal.
©1964 Original Text of 1964 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Photo-Finish
Summary
The luxury mansion on New Zealand's Lake Waihoe was the ideal place for the world-famous soprano to rest after her triumphant tour. Chief Superintendent Alleyn and his wife were among the houseguests - but theirs was not a social visit. When tragedy struck, the peace of the island was shattered. With a houseful of suspects now isolated by one of the lake's sudden storms, Alleyn was to face one of his trickiest cases....
©1980 Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
The Ngaio Marsh BBC Radio Collection
Summary
A collection of the BBC’s dramatisations of Ngaio Marsh’s most famous sleuth: Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn.
This collection includes the following works by Ngaio Marsh:
'A Man Lay Dead' - the gentleman detective tackles a country house party murder.
'A Surfeit of Lampreys' - gentleman sleuth Inspector Alleyn probes a grisly death of the head of a spendthrift aristocratic family.
'Opening Night ' - when a leading actor is found gassed in his dressing room, it looks like suicide. But it transpires he was so detested that everyone had a motive for his murder.
'When in Rome ' - 1970s Rome. Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn is incognito and on the trail of a vast drugs syndicate - and some exceptionally unsavoury blackmail. But he hasn't reckoned on murder.
©2019 BBC Worldwide Ltd (P)2019 BBC Worldwide Ltd
Light Thickens
Summary
Peregrine Jay, owner of the Dolphin Theatre, is putting on a magnificent production of Macbeth, the play that, superstition says, always brings bad luck. But one night the claymore swings, and the dummy's head is more than real: murder behind the scene. Luckily, Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn is in the audience....
©1982 Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Death in Ecstasy
Summary
The poison was cyanide, slipped into the sacred wine of ecstasy just before it was presented to Miss Cara Quayne at the House of the Sacred Flame. The victim was a deeply religious initiate who had trained for a month for her last ceremony. She was also a very beautiful woman.... The suspects were the other initiates and the high priest. All claimed they were above earthly passions. But Cara Quayne had provoked lust, jealousy - and murder. Roderick Alleyn suspected that more evil still lurked behind the Sign of the Sacred Flame....
©1936 Original Text of 1936 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Hand in Glove
Summary
The April Fool’s Day had been a roaring success for all, it seemed - except for poor Mr. Cartell, who had ended up in the ditch - forever. Then there was the case of Mr. Percival Pyke Period’s letter of condolence, sent before the body was found - not to mention the family squabbles. It was a puzzling crime for Superintendent Alleyn....
©1962 Original Text of 1962 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Singing in the Shrouds
Summary
On a cold February night, the police find the third corpse on the quayside in the Pool of London, her body covered with flower petals and pearls. The killer walked away singing. When the cargo ship Cape Farewell sets sail, she carries nine passengers, one of whom is known to be the murderer. Which is why Superintendent Roderick Alleyn joins the ship at Portsmouth on the most difficult assignment of his professional career....
©1958 Original Text of 1958 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio