When in Rome

Murder, blackmail and drug-dealing on the Tiber combine in one of Ngaio Marsh’s liveliest and most evocative novels.

When their guide disappears mysteriously in the depths of a Roman Basilica, the members of Mr Sebastian Mailer’s tour group seem strangely unperturbed.

But when a body is discovered in an Etruscan sarcophagus, Superintendent Alleyn, in Rome incognito on the trail of an international drug racket, is very much concerned…

About the author

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 the received what she called her ‘damery’ in 1966.