Ngaio Marsh's bestselling and ingenious third novel remains one of the most popular pieces of crime fiction of all time.
Sir John Phillips, the Harley Street surgeon, and his beautiful nurse Jane Harden are almost too nervous to operate. The emergency case on the table before them is the Home Secretary - and they both have very good, personal reasons to wish him dead.
Within hours he does die, although the operation itself was a complete success, and Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn must find out why...
Format: Paperback
Pages: 190
Edition: New e.
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 18 Mar 2011
ISBN 10: 0006512534
ISBN 13: 9780006512530
`Continues to be one of Ngaio's most popular novels, and has outstripped all her other titles in sales.'
MARGARET LEWIS
`Ngaio Marsh transforms the detective story from a mere puzzle into a novel.'
DAILY EXPRESS
`She is astoundingly good.'
DAILY EXPRESS
`The finest writer in the English language of the pure, classical puzzle whodunnit. Among the crime queens, Ngaio Marsh stands out as an Empress.'
THE SUN
Dame Ngaio Marsh was born in New Zealand in 1895 and died in February 1982. She wrote over 30 detective novels and many of her stories have theatrical settings, for Ngaio Marsh's real passion was the theatre. She was both actress and producer and almost single-handedly revived the New Zealand public's interest in the theatre. It was for this work that she received what she called her `damery' in 1966.