author header

Inspector Roderick Alleyn

Roderick Alleyn is a fictional gentleman detective  created by New Zealand writer, Ngaio Marsh.

March wrote 32 books featuring Inspector Roderick Alleyn between 1934 and 1982 (her death). An unfinished manuscript was published in 2018, Money in the Morgue, with Stella Duffy. 

Marsh mentions that she named her detective Alleyn after the Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College, where her father had been a pupil. She started a novel with Alleyn in 1931, after reading a detective story by Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers on a wet Saturday afternoon in London. She wondered if she could write something in the genre. So she bought six exercise books and a pencil at a local stationer and started A Man Lay Dead, involving a Murder Game, which was then popular at English weekend parties.

More on Roderick Alleyn

PDF Print
Cover Title Authors Rating Hits
cover Title: The Nursing Home Murder Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1283
cover Title: Tied Up In Tinsel Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1288
cover Title: Photo Finish Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1326
cover Title: Died In The Wool Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1331
cover Title: Spinsters In Jeopardy Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1335
cover Title: Death At The Bar Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1338
cover Title: Light Thickens Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1339
cover Title: Black As He's Painted Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1340
cover Title: Death of a Fool Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1341
cover Title: Grave Mistake Authors: Ngaio Marsh Rating: 0 Hits: 1343
Please past text to modal

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.”

William Faulkner

William Faulkner

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Reading brings us unknown friends”

Honore de Balzac

Honore de Balzac

“When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.”

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Sorry, this website uses features that your browser doesn’t support. Upgrade to a newer version of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge and you’ll be all set.