Christmas time in an isolated country house and, following a flaming row in the kitchen, there's murder inside. When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected — and foul play it proves to be. Only suspicion falls not on the staff but on the guests, all so unimpeachably respectable that the very thought of murder in connection with any of them seems almost heresy. When Superintendent Roderick Alleyn returns unexpectedly from a trip to Australia, it is to find his beloved wife in the thick of an intriguing mystery…
It was rumoured that Hollywood stars would go down on their knees for the privilege of being photographed by the good-looking, brilliantly talented and ultra-fashionable portrait photographer Leslie Searle. But what was such a gifted creature doing in such an English village backwater of Salcott St Mary? And why — and how — did he disappear? If a crime had been committed, was it murder… fraud… or simply some macabre practical joke?
On vacation in New Zealand, Inspector Alleyn meets a theater troupe engaged in a real-life drama more killing than anything they’ve ever staged. When the producer is struck down at a celebration party with a jeroboam of champagne. Inspector Alleyn moves quickly behind the scenes. There he encounters a malevolent Maori idol, a peculiar will, and an unknown thespian whose role is pure murder…
It was April in Rome, and gathered together in the church of San Tommaso in Pallario was the kind of varied group of people that can only meet on a tour. They were there under the aegis of one Sebastian Mailer, who had promised them a most unconventional tour — a claim no one later disputed, after encountering murder, blackmail and drug-running. Inspector Roderick Alleyn, in Rome on a special mission, became involved in the case, and found it one of his most baffling — a case in which every suspect might equally well prove a victim…
The stark naked body was lying in the tub. Not unsual for a proper bath, but highly irregular for murder — especially with a pair of gold pince-nez deliberately perched before the sightless eyes. What's more, the face appeared to have been shaved after death. The police assumed that the victim was a prominent financier, but Lord Peter Wimsey, who dabbled in mystery detection as a hobby, knew better. In this, his first murder case, Lord Peter untangles the ghastly mystery of the corpse in the bath.
