Money in the Morgue (Roderick Alleyn Series #33)

by Ngaio Marsh

Overview

Inspector Alleyn just wants to write a letter to his wife, but World War II keeps intruding with war-work that has brought Alleyn to a hospital in New Zealand’s hinterlands, and it’s the war that has left the hospital swimming in convalescing soldiers. A storm has killed the electrical power, leaving Alleyn, the soldiers, the medical staff and all stranded in the dark…with a murderer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631941726
Publisher:	Felony & Mayhem Press
Publication date:	12/04/2018
Series:	Roderick Alleyn Series , #33
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	842,519
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Dame Ngaio Marsh (whose first name is pronounced “NYE-oh), was born and grew up in New Zealand, and moved to England in the late 1920s. Bored and out of sorts on a wet weekend, she wrote A Man Lay Dead, first of the 32 novels featuring Inspector Alleyn of Scotland Yard; the series would eventually see her named one of England’s four “queens of crime” (alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Margery Allingham), and earn her a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, for her lifetime achievements in crime fiction.
Despite these accolades, Marsh’s true passion was for the theater (and many fans regard the “Alleyn” novels with theatrical settings as her best). In 1966, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to theater in New Zealand. Marsh died in 1982, leaving behind a passionate fan-base and the opening chapters of….Money In the Morgue.
Like Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy has been a celebrated actor and theatrical producer, as well as a playwright, but she is perhaps best known as a novelist, the author of five crime-novels featuring lesbian private-eye Saz Martin, and nine works of literary fiction. The youngest of seven children, Duffy spent her childhood in New Zealand, but moved to England as an adult; she now lives in London. In 2016 Duffy was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her services to the arts.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/10/2018
Duffy (The Hidden Room) does an excellent job building a taut atmospheric whodunit based on the opening chapters and a few notes that Marsh (1895–1982) left behind for her 33rd mystery featuring Scotland Yard’s Chief Det. Insp. Roderick Alleyn. During WWII, Alleyn takes on a sensitive undercover assignment at a New Zealand military hospital, Mount Seager, after counterespionage suspects that radio transmissions from its vicinity are intended for the Japanese. Alleyn poses as a Mount Seager patient, a writer suffering from a nervous disorder. For a week, he discovers nothing of significance, until he’s confronted with “a major robbery, the missing corpse of an elderly man, and the found body of the most senior and longest-serving staff member in the hospital.” A storm that cuts off the hospital from the outside world hampers Alleyn’s efforts to sort out what happened. Duffy’s facility at injecting wit into fair-play detecting will make Marsh fans hope she’ll continue the series. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Gernert Co. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly