Surfeit of Lampreys is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio Marsh

Dame Ngaio Marsh DBE , born Edith Ngaio Marsh, was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. There is some uncertainty over her birth date as her father neglected to register her birth until 1900...

; it is the tenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn

Roderick Alleyn

Roderick Alleyn is a fictional character who first appeared in 1934. He is the policeman hero of the 32 detective novels of Ngaio Marsh. Marsh and her gentleman detective belong firmly in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, although the last Alleyn novel, Light Thickens, was published as late as...

, and was first published in 1941. The plot concerns the murder of a British peer, a theme to which Marsh would return; the novel was published as Death of a Peer in the United States.

Its title is a reference to the manner by which Henry I of England

Henry I of England

Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

 is said to have succumbed to food poisoning.