Death and the Dancing Footman is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh, the eleventh of her Roderick Alleyn books and was first published in 1941 in the US by Little Brown of Boston and in 1942 in the UK by Collins Crime Club.

[2] Set in Cloudyfold, Dorset in 1940; Jonathan, wealthy dabbler from the Royal of Highfold Manor, and Aubrey Mandrake, writer, map out guests that have mutually agreed to macabre entertainment for his house party.

Alleyn stages a re-enactment with the suspects, in which the key witness is the titular footman, who has lingered in the hall to listen to the radio while surreptitiously attempting the novelty dance band hit Hands, Knees and Boomps-a-Daisy.

Punshon's review for The Manchester Guardian was likewise mixed, but concluded, "Miss Marsh shows again her literary skill and sense of character in her story of a cranky old man who amuses himself by observing among his friends social reactions which he did not expect to end in tragedy".

[citation needed] In December 1986 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 90-minute adaptation, starring Nigel Graham (as Alleyn), Laurence Payne and Steven Pacey, and dramatised by Alan Downer.