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Final Curtain

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About this listen

A country house murder, artistic insight and the postwar reunion of Alleyn and Troy combine in Ngaio Marsh’s wittiest and most readable novel.

Agatha Troy, world-famous portrait painter, is inveigled into accepting a commission to paint the 70-year-old Sir Henry Ancred, Bart., the Grand Old Man of the stage. But just as she has completed her portrait, the old actor dies.

The dramatic circumstances of his death are such that Scotland Yard is called in - in the person of Troy’s long-absent husband, Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn....

©1947 Original Text of 1947 by Ngaio Marsh (P)2015 Hachette Audio Cosy Crime Thrillers Detective Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Traditional Detectives Thriller Crime Military

Critic reviews

"The brilliant Ngaio Marsh ranks with Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers." ( Times Literary Supplement)
"The finest writer in the English language of the pure, classical puzzle whodunit. Among the crime queens, Ngaio Marsh stands out as an Empress." ( The Sun)
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Dame Ngaio is never less than wonderful in her storytelling. Her beautiful writing may be dated in a manner that doesn't afflict Dame Agatha, but that simply makes the comedic elements of her stories all the funnier. Final Curtain is beautifully read, as always, by Mr Saxon whose vocal gymnastics bring every individual character to life in the most lucid fashion. Roderick Alleyn is one of the most excellent detectives in the Golden Age genre, and the great Dame's whodunits are of the very highest order.

John Saxon's narration.

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I’ve listened to all of the Roderick Alleyn books before this and have found it to be one of the most enjoyable one. Firstly it has both the detective and his wife Troy in it (they were both mostly kissing from the last few books before this one) and then it’s got good pace. It’s a real “page turner” in that it kept me speculating who the murderer was. I’d recommend this one over some of the earlier books.

One of the best of this series

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Superb writing. Plot suitably detailed and interesting but not irritating. One of my favourite Marsh books.

Excellent plot

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I couldn't make it beyond the second chapter, as the reader is so appalling. Every male is camp and every female sounds like a pantomime Dame.

Reader thinks it a pantomime.

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