Returning from a visit to her daughter in Iraq, Joan Scudamore finds herself unexpectedly alone and stranded in an isolated rest house by flooding of the railway tracks. This sudden solitude compels Joan to assess her life for the first time ever and face up to many of the truths about herself. Looking back over the years, Joan painfully re-examines her attitudes, relationships and actions and becomes increasingly uneasy about the person who is revealed...
As Jane Marple sat basking in the tropical sunshine she felt mildly discontented with life. True, the warmth eased her rheumatism, but here in paradise nothing ever happened. Then a question was put to her by a stranger: 'Would you like to see a picture of a murderer?' Before she has a chance to answer, the man vanishes, only to be found dead the next day. The mysteries abound: Where is the picture? Why is the hotelier prone to nightmares? Why doesn't...
In Hercule Poirot's Christmas, the holidays are anything but merry when a family reunion is marred by murder ? and the notoriously fastidious investigator is quickly on the case. The wealthy Simeon Lee has demanded that all four of his sons ? one faithful, one prodigal, one impecunious, one sensitive ? and their wives return home for Christmas. But a heartwarming family holiday is not exactly what he has in mind. He bedevils each of his sons with...
A murder is announced in a small-town newspaper advertisement?and Miss Marple must unravel the fiendish puzzle when a crime does indeed occur. The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiosity when the Gazette advertises ?A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.? A childish practical joke? Or a spiteful hoax? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, the locals arrive at Little Paddocks...
The world's best-selling mystery! "Ten..." Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious "U.N. Owen". "Nine..." At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead. "Eight..." Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one...one by one they begin to die. "Seven..." Who among them is...
"Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his "counting house" when he suffered an agonizing and sudden death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain traces of cereals. Yet, it was the incident in the parlor which confirmed Miss Marple's suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme . . ."--Provided by publisher.
An old-fashioned London Hotel is not quite as reputable as it makes out! When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she's looking for at Bertram's Hotel: traditional decor, impeccable service and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Yet, not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong...
It was the match-up of the century: four sleuths--Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard; Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, famed writer of detective stories; Col. Race of His Majesty's Secret Service; and the incomparable Hercule Poirot - invited to play bridge with four specially invited guests, each of whom had gotten away with murder! But before the first rubber was completed, the host was dead.
"The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of the late millionaire's granddaughter."--The publisher.
Hercule Poirot and the recently widowed Captain Arthur Hastings return to the scene of their first investigation many years before. Joining them at the estate is a mysterious stranger linked to five seemingly unrelated murders. Poirot must work quickly to prevent the sixth murder.
Poirot's friend, writer Ariadne Oliver, draws him into a mock murder mystery thrown by Sir George and Lady Stubbs; his expertise is needed when the fun and games become something altogether more sinister.
A smashed mirror convinces Hercule Poirot that the apparent suicide of a client is far too convenient an explanation for what is obviously a gruesome case of murder?
In Death Comes As the End, Dame Agatha Christie transports us back to ancient Egypt 2000 B.C. where a priest?s daughter, investigating a suspicious death, uncovers an asp?s nest of jealousy, betrayal, and serial murder. It is Egypt in 2000 BC, where death gives meaning to life. At the foot of a cliff lies the broken, twisted body of Nofret, concubine to a ka-priest. Young, beautiful, and venomous, most agree that it was fate?she deserved to die like...
From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman....
The tranquility of a luxury cruise along the Nile was shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway had been shot through the head. She was young, stylish, and beautiful. A girl who had everything...until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalled an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: "I'd like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger." Yet under the searing heat of the Egyptian sun, nothing is ever quite what...
In one of London's most elegant shops, a decorative doll in green velvet adopts some rather human, and sinister, traits....A country gentleman is questioned about a murder that has yet to be committed....In summoning spirits, a medium is drawn closer to the world of the dead than she ever imagined possible....In a small country church, a dying man's last word, sanctuary, becomes both an elegy and a clue to a crime. Only the Queen of Crime could have...
A quiet English village is plagued by a fiendish serial killer. Luke Fitzwilliam does not believe Miss Pinkerton's wild allegation that a multiple murderer is at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood and that her local doctor is next in line. But within hours, Miss Pinkerton has been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Mere coincidence? Luke is inclined to think so - until he reads in the Times of the unexpected demise of Wychwood's Dr....
A classic Hercule Poirot investigation, Agatha Christie's Elephants Can Remember has the expert detective delving into an unsolved crime from the past involving the strange death of a husband and wife. Hercule Poirot stood on the clifftop. Here, many years earlier, there had been a fatal accident followed by the grisly discovery of two bodies, a husband and wife who had been shot dead. But who had killed whom? Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion?...
The site of the house called The Towers had once been known as Gipsy's Acre. It was there that Michael Rogers first met a wealthy American oil heiress, Fenella Guteman, whom he was later to marry. Gypsies' warnings, and revelation of a crime follow.
The beautiful bronzed body of Arlena Stuart lay facedown on the beach. But strangely, there was no sun and Arlena was not sunbathing...she had been strangled. Ever since Arlena's arrival the air had been thick with sexual tension. Each of the guests had a motive to kill her, including Arlena's new husband. But Hercule Poirot suspects that this apparent "crime of passion" conceals something much more evil. --from back cover
