C.D.I. Alleyn Investigates a Very Strange Piano

OVERTURE TO DEATH.
By Ngaio Marsh.
Lee Furman.
1939. $2.00

From Les Blatt's podcast website (CLASSIC MYSTERIES, July 20, 2009):

She [Marsh] has long been one of my favorite writers - I like her detective, the other "regulars" in the books, the mysteries themselves (always fairly plotted) and her excellent sense of humor. 'Overture to Death' also features an impossible crime situation . . . .

Another review from seventy years prior (THE SATURDAY REVIEW, June 3, 1939):

Pom! Pom! POM! went Rachmaninoff prelude, and acidulous English spinster executant toppled off piano stool dead. Insp. Roderick Alleyn elucidates. - Identity of killer not very deep secret. Otherwise superbly wrought and cleverly contrived yarn with interesting psychological overtones. - Verdict: Unexcelled.

Category: Detective fiction