The village of South Mardian likes the old ways. The very old ways. This may be 1957, but South Mardian still features a blacksmith, a village idiot, and an elaborate fertility ritual performed at the winter solstice. There's squabbling, of course, and worse-like when one of the ritual's main players is found beheaded, everything north of his neck having been neatly lopped off by a ritual sword. Inspector Alleyn does have to contain a certain incredulous...

In an almost unspeakably charming little English village, one of the local aristocrats turns up dead next to the local trout-stream with, in fact, a trout at his side. Everyone is dreadfully upset, of course, but really, just a tad irritated as well-murder is so awfully messy. Inspector Alleyn doesn't quite fit in among the inbred gentry, but they'll allow him to do his work and clear the matter up-though they do wish he didn't feel compelled to ask...

A police inspector finds trouble during a trip to New Zealand: "It's time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around." -New York Magazine Inspector Roderick Alleyn has taken a break from England and journeyed to New Zealand, and traveling along with him are the members of the Carolyn Dacres English Comedy Company. The actors' operatic intrigues offer an amusing diversion-until, unexpectedly, they turn deadly. And Alleyn...