A man lay Dead was a decent mystery from the Golden Age but nothing special. I thought the plot was a bit silly. A classic locked room mystery. I am not sure I plan to read more from the author. I like Sayers a lot more.

A puzzle driven mystery with plot second and characters a distant third. The denouement is just silly. The method used by the murderer is really beyond belief, relying on everything being just right. As a movie, it would only work in a comedy.

While in high school I dismissed Nagio Marsh as not worth the time. This Kindle Unlimited book did not change my mind.

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, companions...

Interesante lectura para quién quiera conocer una alternativa diferente a Agatha Christie. No desvelaré nada acerca de la trama. Ameno y ligero. Sin más complicaciones.

I Was Amused.Marsh borrows from Wodehouse: Countryside House Parties! Parlour Games! Conjoining Rooms! Emancipated Young Women Driving Extremely Fast! Russians! Dashing Debonair Detectives!"He climbed in [the car] beside her, And almost immediately had his breath snatched away by Miss North’s extremely progressive ideas on acceleration.I read Marsh decades ago, and remembered enjoying many of the books, others not so much. so I thought I might start the series from the beginning and see what an ...

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 p...

Now I am way behind with my Ngaio Marsh challenge , not because I was delaying reading these books, but for other book reasons. So when I started reading this book I was hoping I would enjoy it, and I did. I have seen a few TV episodes with Patrick Malahide, but had no pre-conceived ideas of Chief Inspector Alleyn, that said, I must admit he did come across very Patrick Malahide -ish.My previous book was another detective story Pietr the Latvian and it was to me a fantastic, albeit short detecti...

2.5 ★& that high only because this was Marsh's first book. Makes you realise what a remarkable achievement Christie's first , was.Other reviewers have criticised Marsh for inconsistencies in Alleyn's characterisation. I actually don't mind this. I prefer it to having Alleyn & various aristocrats angsting over being involved in something as low bred as a murder! This is very tedious in Marsh's other novels. And I did enjoy the start- although for some strange reason, the frenetic pac...

This is the first of Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn mysteries and it contains everything that a great Golden Age mystery should. First, the house party, complete with varying guests - an adulterous wife, jealous girlfriend, mysterious Russian, etc. In this case, the country house in question is Frantock and Nigel Bathgate (a journalist) is accompanying his cousin Charles on one of the much coveted entertaining weekends, for which invitations are hard to obtain. The host, avid collector, Sir Huber...

Marsh introduced her famous detective in this mystery, and you can tell that she wasn't entirely sure what personality to go with. At times he reads like Wimsey playing a silly ass, at other times he is crude or clever in the manner of a Bright Young Thing; he takes the official police hard-line one moment only to suddenly behave in unprofessional and even inappropriate ways. I suspect she was trying to write realistically complex character, but the overall effect is one of schizophrenia and imp...