A London actor was dying for a star billing...

From the leading lady's liaison to the harassment of an aging juvenile lead-there's never a dull moment, darling, at the Vulcan Theatre. But vanity and hysterics, suspicion and superstition, brandy and jealousy, are upstaged by a death on opening night. Was it really suicide? Or a macabre encore to a long-ago murder in the same backstage room? Scotland Yard's cast of suspects for the final curtain.

Amateur actors set the stage for murder...

Who in the quiet village of Chipping would kill wealthy spinster Idris Campanula? Plenty of people, among them her fellow cast members from a troubled charity production. Miss Campanula was a spiteful gossip, gleefully destroying others' lives merely for her won excitement. But once Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives, he quickly realizes that the murderer might have killed the wrong woman-and may soon stage a repeat performance...

Exit an ambitious actor...

The script of the Unicorn Theatre's new play uncannily echoes a quarrel in the star's dressing room. And the stage drama gets all too real when charming Felix Gardener shoots his blustering rival, Arthur Surbonardier, dead-with a gun Arthur himself loaded with blanks. or did he? How the live bullets got there, and why, make for a convoluted case that pits Inspector Roderick Alleyn against someone who rates an Oscar for a murderously clever performance.

Who had a hand in the murder of a country gent?

All manner of friction fills the English country house shared by genteel retiree Percival Pyke Period and fuddy-duddy lawyer Harry Cartell. Until one of them, after a flamboyant dowager's treasure hunt party, is found murdered-face down in the mire of an open drain. Which of Superintendent Roderick Alleyn's suspects-linked by a tangled set of relationships-wore a crucial, missing pair of gloves to commit this dirty deed?

Troubled waters...Celebrated painter Troy Alleyn, aboard the Zodiac on a cruise of the English waterways, finds a colorful constellation of personalities on its passengers list. Plus one who missed the boat-found murdered in London. Her letters to her husband, Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, relate a string of incidents-capped by a grisly drowning-that convince him that one of the ship's company is a world-class art forger on the run. But can he unmask this master of disguise in time to save another life-possibly Troy's?

The art of detection gets clouded by desire.

It was a bizarre pose for beautiful model Sonia Gluck-and her last. For in the draperies of her couch lay a fatal dagger, and behind her murder lies all the intrigue and acid-etched temperament of an artist's colony. Called in to investigate, Scotland Yard's Inspector Roderick Alleyn finds his own passions unexpectedly stirred by the feisty painter Agatha Troy-brilliant artist and suspected murderess.

MURDER IN HIGH C...A persistent paparazzi has hounded operatic soprano Isabella Sommita until her nerves are at the breaking point. Now her millionaire boyfriend has whisked her to a New Zealand island to recover. There she plans a performance of an aria written just for her-- by her secret young lover, who, along with a bevy of envious celebrities, is also on the island. It's the perfect set-up for grand opera-- wild passions...and bloody murder. And when the great singer is found dead, a photo on her bosom, Superintendent Roderick Alleyn must find out who did the diva in...

A local pub serves up a curious brew-of murder...

Settling in for a cozy night of brandy and darts at the pub, an inebriated lawyer suffers a seemingly harmless dart puncture. But within moments of his injury, the unlucky barrister loses more than a simple game of darts-he loses his life. Called in to investigate this alleged accident, Inspector Roderick Alleyn wonders about the rules of this friendly bar game-and probes into a pub full of motives for murder...

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Murdered.

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.