Itemize Epithetical Books A Man Lay Dead (Roderick Alleyn #1)

Title	:	A Man Lay Dead (Roderick Alleyn #1)
Author	:	Ngaio Marsh
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 176 pages
Published	:	2000 by HarperCollins (first published 1934)
Categories	:	Mystery. Fiction. Crime. Detective. Classics. European Literature. British Literature. Thriller. Mystery Thriller

A Man Lay Dead (Roderick Alleyn #1) Paperback | Pages: 176 pages

Interpretation Concering Books A Man Lay Dead (Roderick Alleyn #1)

At Sir Hubert Handesley's country house party, five guests have gathered for the uproarious parlor game of "Murder." Yet no one is laughing when the lights come up on an actual corpse, the good-looking and mysterious Charles Rankin. Scotland Yard's Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives to find a complete collection of alibis, a missing butler, and an intricate puzzle of betrayal and sedition in the search for the key player in this deadly game.

List Books During A Man Lay Dead (Roderick Alleyn #1)

Original Title:	A Man Lay Dead
ISBN:	0006512518 (ISBN13: 9780006512516)
Edition Language:	English
Series:	Roderick Alleyn #1
Characters:	Roderick Alleyn, Nigel Bathgate, Sir Hubert Handesley, Charles Rankin, Arthur Wilde, Angela North, Marjorie Wilde, Rosamund Grant, Doctor Foma Tokareff, Vassily Ivanovitch, Mr. Sumiloff, Detective-Sergeant Bailey
Setting:	Frantock Hall(United Kingdom) London, England(United Kingdom)

Rating Epithetical Books A Man Lay Dead (Roderick Alleyn #1)

Ratings: 3.81 From 10698 Users | 617 Reviews

Write Up Epithetical Books A Man Lay Dead (Roderick Alleyn #1)

Gave up at 72%. Just couldn't take any more. Couldn't shake the feeling that it was an extremely poor copy of Christie and PG Wodehouse. Irritated the crap out of me.

Reason for reading1. I needed a book by a New Zealand author for a challenge. 2. A feeling of nostalgia when I saw the name Ngaio Marsh. My mother read her books when I was a child. I may have tried one or two myself but they would have not been very interesting to me then.Times change and I found A Man Lay Dead very interesting indeed. It is a typical mystery of the time, country house party, upper class guests, unexpected murder and the arrival of a very clever policeman to discover the evil

This being the first Roderick Alleyn murder mystery... out of 33, of Ngaio Marsh, wonderful appellation, ( beats the first name of Edith... her middle one tops that, no contest) the author is getting her sea legs the plot nothing new even in 1934 when written. Sir Hubert Handesley invites a small number of guests for the weekend, a party of British frivolities, eating, drinking, walks in the woods and even a mock killing in his huge country estate , Frantock Hall; silly fun and games,



As Ngaio Marsh's fledgling flight into the world of detective novels, this book had enough in it to pique my interest and leave the door open for more of her works. Although it lacks the mellifluous flow of Dame Agatha, in style, in writing, and in ideas, I found it still filled the gap for that "country-house cosy" that I was looking for.There is a bit of a gimmicky feel to it overall as if Marsh is trying to capture Christie's style, and not quite succeeding, especially in Inspector Alleyn's

I'm disappointed. It never hooked me. Characters and setting were blah. Then I started noticing the overabundance of adverbs and how much the dialog tags bugged me.

3.5 stars - While this didn't turn out to be an isolated closed circle mystery, it is a very nice little country house mystery that I enjoyed more than I thought I might. The first 25% is a little uneven, but once Alleyn comes on the scene, things pick up, and I enjoyed the murder puzzle component quite a bit and the pay off was fun.