Final Curtain Audiobook By Ngaio Marsh cover art

Final Curtain

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Final Curtain

By: Ngaio Marsh
Narrated by: James Saxon
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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 Cozy Crime Thrillers Detective Fiction Genre Fiction Military Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Traditional Detectives War & Military Thriller Crime

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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Alleyn returning from abroad is thrown straight into a case, involving his beloved wife Troy.

Classic crime - well done!

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Marsh crafted an intricate mystery which has occasional bursts of humor. Beautifully performed by Saxon. Highly recommended

intricate and we'll performed

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Love the language, the characters, the plot, the descriptions- an exceptional writer.So glad I discovered her!

So good!

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James Saxon is my favorite reader for British mysteries. He sets the tone with his characterizations which fit the time and place of the story perfectly.

And this is among my favorite Ngaio Marsh stories, with a plot twist deftly done that keeps you guessing.

A good whodunnit excellently read

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I am listening to her works from the first and have so far found most of them forgettable with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions. Final Curtain is her best so far. Memorable characters, a good setting and a good mystery. Saxon also does an excellent job with the reading of this one, not as over the top as he can be with some previous books.

Finally an excellent Marsh

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NM really was a very gifted writer and she shows all her wit and brilliant characterization ability in this tour de force. I think it’s certainly one of her best and one of my favorite novels in any genre. The narration by James Saxon is superb and perfectly complements this highly entertaining tale. Highly recommended

Exceptionally entertaining

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Good mystery, outstanding narration of all the looney characters, and sometimes very annoying. These are still good books, all these years later.

Mystery Maven

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This is not the best of Marsh's stories. The family is so horrid that the story doesn't grab until quite far in.

Not the best but well performed

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I enjoyed the written book, but found this unlistenable. I finally stopped and pulled out my old paperback with its tiny print to finish reading it.

I know that the family of characters were mostly histrionic, but the narration was very irritating and hard to listen to, and most of the characters sounded alike. I stopped when Troy's voicing started sounding like the rest of the ensemble. I have never done this with an audible book before. I had turned in a couple of older purchases simply to be able to afford 2 new ones, but without good reason otherwise. This one is unreturnable, and now I know why some returns are allowable. (A Clutch of Constables, my favorite Alleyn book) was listenable because there were fewer histrionic characters, but in general suffered by the same sort of narration.

a good alleyn mystery, painful to listen to

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