Status
Available
Call number
Library's review
Indeholder kapitlerne "Forspil på New Zealand", "Ankomst til London", "En ordsprogsleg planlægges", "Onkel G.", "Krukken går til vands", "Katastrofe", "En adelsmands død", "Alleyn træffer familien Lamprey", "Liljens hvide sønner", "En lille dreng i forhør", "Konversationsstykke", "Ifølge
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enkens udsagn", "Lady Wutherwoods tilregnelighed", "Roberta aflægger falsk forklaring", "Mr. Bathgate kommer til skade", "Nattens mørke hær", "Mr. Fox finder en voksfigur", "Natlig scene ved levende lys", "Den afsavede hånd", "Et liv i fattigdom".???
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Genres
Publication
Kbh Samleren 1966
Description
Fiction. Mystery. HTML:A suspicious inheritance comes to the rescue of a cash-strapped aristocratic family: "Entertaining and devious . . . Plenty of red herrings." �??Kirkus Reviews The upper-crust Lamprey family exemplifies charm, wit, and a chronic lack of funds. Their only source of hope is the wealthy but unpleasant Lord Wutherwood, and the Lampreys may perhaps be forgiven for doing a little jig when his Lordship is killed and the resulting inheritance saves their bacon. Inspector Roderick Alleyn wouldn't dream of judging the Lampreys' joy. But he would like to figure out whether they murdered their benefactor . . . Also published under the title Death of a Peer "It's time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around." �??New York Magazine "A mystery novelist of world renown." �??The New York T… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member nmhale
Another Inspector Alleyn treat to devour. I truly love Marsh's detective series, and this book was one of the up ones (I think all long series have their up and down books), in large part due to the zany Lampreys. Why did they change the title? The Lampreys deserve to be headlining this novel, as
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they steal the scene from Alleyn numerous times, which is hard to do. They are silly but endearing, and their verbal interchanges are lively. They are both characters in themselves and also a composite character as a family unit. Robin plays the straight man to their wackiness, and I was pleased with her romantic outcome. As for the actual story? The murder was your typical cozy mystery, a bit on the gruesome side, the clues were dealt, Alleyn was marvelous, the red herrings abounded, and the solution made sense. Nothing to take away, and everything to gain from meeting the Lampreys. I highly recommend this installment in Marsh's classic mystery series. Show Less
LibraryThing member astherest
This was the first Inspector Alleyn mystery, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's basically a "locked room" mystery where all the action takes place in a London flat and the family members are the only suspects. I found the family very entertaining. I understand through other sources that the family may be
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based on the Micawbers from David Copperfield, but I found them very reminiscent of E. Nesbit's Bastables. Show Less
LibraryThing member jnyrose
This book contains at its heart one of Marsh's best creations, the Lamprey family. Dotty, eccentric, lovable, they form the center of a locked room mystery--and distract the reader from the horror of the crime itself. They nearly distract the detectives as well, but as Marsh's Inspector Alleyn can
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always be relied upon to re-center himself, the distraction does not prove fatal and all of the clues are neatly laid out in the narrative itself. One of the characters even appears in a later book (Night at the Vulcan) and the quiet romance is dealt with deftly. Very well-plotted, very British, very enjoyable. Show Less
LibraryThing member Figgles
A classic who-done-it from Ngaio Marsh starring Detective Inspector Alleyn. Slightly exaggerated characterisation doesn't detract from this murder mystery, starring the aristoctratic, feckless and charming Lamprey family. Interestingly much of the action is seen through the eyes of newly arrived
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New Zealander Roberta Grey, which may parallel the author's own experiences as an expatriate in London in the 1930's. Very enjoyable. Show Less
LibraryThing member nobby1
A very good murder-mystery, with plenty of humour. A particularly gruesome method of murder is employed.
LibraryThing member mmyoung
Better than the book published just previously (Death at the Bar) Surfeit is an example of a rather common technique amongst the "you need a chart and a map to understand the crime" mystery writers. Marsh disguises the obviousness of the identity of the murder by not giving us crucial information
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until late in the book and by distracting the reader with the "charm" and "eccentricity" of the the aristocratic family in which the crime takes place. Read more than a 1/2 century later the obvious double-standard of finding charming among the upper class what would have been considered unacceptable among the lower class is hard to miss. The easy conceit of earlier books is missing and the reappearance, for no good reason, of the reporter Bathgate, feels more than a little forced. Show Less
LibraryThing member kaylol
It's kind of funny and not a bad crime case.
LibraryThing member JulesJones
The tenth Inspector Alleyn novel, abridged on 3 CDs and ably read by Anton Lesser. The Lampreys of the title are in fact titled, being of a spendthrift aristocratic family, eccentric beyond belief, broke as usual, and depending upon a handout from an extremely wealthy uncle. Who won't play along,
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and of course is found murdered. An amusing listen. The novel also available as a full cast dramatisation from BBC Radio 4. Show Less
LibraryThing member MsStephie
I find it irritating when a book's title is changed, took me a while to find this on Goodreads. I read the book about 30 years ago and enjoyed it. An ingenious murder, though as others have said the Lampreys were not very sympathetic as a family.
LibraryThing member thorold
Marsh is probably the one of the 1930s "queens of English crime" that I've read least of. Her work doesn't have the inescapable ubiquity of Agatha Christie, and it doesn't seem to have any characteristics that particularly grab me in the way that a Dorothy L. Sayers novel would. This book, her
It's a good old-fashioned English detective mystery, with everything you could want in term of butlers, peers, housemaids, a running joke about Shakespeare, an unconventional murder weapon, and a plot that requires you to study a plan of the building to make sense of who was where at the time of the crime. A marquess is found dead in the lift after visiting his Micawberesque younger brother, Lord Charles Lamprey, and Chief Inspector Alleyn is called in to investigate. Although published in wartime, it's set - and was presumably written - in the lonodn of '38 or '39, when war was still something looming on the horizon. The plot hangs together as well as these things ever do, the Lampreys and their many children are entertaining, in a disarming-upper-class-charm kind of way, and there is a certain autobiographical conviction to the passages where the point of view shifts to the young New Zealander Roberta Grey, but there are also some rather poorly-written scenes with lower-class characters. And Alleyn never quite becomes human enough to be an interesting detective. Pleasant, but nothing special.
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tenth, attracted me a bit more than the two or three others I've read, but I still found the whole experience a bit bland.It's a good old-fashioned English detective mystery, with everything you could want in term of butlers, peers, housemaids, a running joke about Shakespeare, an unconventional murder weapon, and a plot that requires you to study a plan of the building to make sense of who was where at the time of the crime. A marquess is found dead in the lift after visiting his Micawberesque younger brother, Lord Charles Lamprey, and Chief Inspector Alleyn is called in to investigate. Although published in wartime, it's set - and was presumably written - in the lonodn of '38 or '39, when war was still something looming on the horizon. The plot hangs together as well as these things ever do, the Lampreys and their many children are entertaining, in a disarming-upper-class-charm kind of way, and there is a certain autobiographical conviction to the passages where the point of view shifts to the young New Zealander Roberta Grey, but there are also some rather poorly-written scenes with lower-class characters. And Alleyn never quite becomes human enough to be an interesting detective. Pleasant, but nothing special.
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LibraryThing member leslie.98
Sept. 2019 reread via my dad's Kindle:
I read this mystery years ago and found upon rereading that while I remembered the Lampreys, I had no idea who the culprit was. I did manage to pick up on the most important clue but failed to see what Alleyn saw about what it meant. On another note - I find
I read this mystery years ago and found upon rereading that while I remembered the Lampreys, I had no idea who the culprit was. I did manage to pick up on the most important clue but failed to see what Alleyn saw about what it meant. On another note - I find
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that this book was originally called "A Surfeit of Lampreys"; as with Agatha Christie books, I often believe I have found one that I haven't read before only to discover that it is just that the American edition had a different name... So, one book less in this series left unread. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1940
Physical description
271 p.; 18.1 cm
Local notes
Omslag: C. Vang Petersen
Omslaget viser en dukke
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra engelsk "Surfeit of lampreys" af Rose-Marie Tvermoes
Omslaget viser en dukke
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra engelsk "Surfeit of lampreys" af Rose-Marie Tvermoes
Similar in this library
Series
Pages
271
DDC/MDS
| 813 |