Colour Scheme

Colour Scheme is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the twelfth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1943. The novel takes place in New Zealand during World War II; the plot involves suspected Nazi activity at a hot springs resort on the New Zealand coast and a gruesome murder whose solution exposes the spies. Alleyn himself is working for military intelligence in their counterespionage division; it is not until the very end of the book that one of its characters is revealed to be Inspector Alleyn in disguise. Marsh's next novel Died in the Wool also concerns Alleyn's counterespionage work in New Zealand.

Colour Scheme was one of four Alleyn novels adapted for New Zealand television in 1977; Alleyn was played by George Baker.

Inspector Roderick Alleyn
Creator
  • Ngaio Marsh
Novels
(chronological)
  • A Man Lay Dead
  • Enter a Murderer
  • The Nursing Home Murder
  • Death in Ecstasy
  • Vintage Murder
  • Artists in Crime
  • Death in a White Tie
  • Overture to Death
  • Death at the Bar
  • Surfeit of Lampreys
  • Death and the Dancing Footman
  • Colour Scheme
  • Died in the Wool
  • Final Curtain
  • Swing Brother Swing
  • Opening Night
  • Spinsters in Jeopardy
  • Scales of Justice
  • Off With His Head
  • Singing in the Shrouds
  • False Scent
  • Hand in Glove
  • Dead Water
  • Death at the Dolphin
  • Clutch of Constables
  • When in Rome
  • Tied Up in Tinsel
  • Black As He's Painted
  • Last Ditch
  • Grave Mistake
  • Photo Finish
  • Light Thickens
See also
  • Death on the Air and Other Stories (1995)
  • Gentleman detective
  • The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries (BBC television)
  • Patrick Malahide (actor)


Famous quotes containing the words colour and/or scheme:

    “No one knows the colour of a flower
    till it is broken.”
    —Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)

    “I have no scheme about it,—no designs on men at all; and, if I had, my mode would be to tempt them with the fruit, and not with the manure. To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives?—and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live more worthily and profitably?”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)