Agatha Christie

Set in the summer of 1917, the story follows the war-wounded Hastings to the Styles St. Mary estate of his friend John Cavendish. The Cavendish household is wrought with tension due to the marriage of John's widowed mother to a suspicious younger man. In the village, Hastings runs into his old friend Hercule Poirot and, when the estate's trouble turns deadly, the friends unite to solve a most baffling case.

Investigating the case of a woman who has been missing for five years, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford uncover just enough information to solve the mystery and put their own lives in jeopardy.

Miss Jane Marple, a deceptively demure spinster, investigates when an unpopular magistrate and church warden is discovered shot through the head.

When Tommy and Tuppence visit an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they think nothing of her mistrust of the doctors. But then Mrs. Lockett mentions a poisoned mushroom stew, and they find themselves caught up in an unexpected adventure.

Miss Marple confronts a "murder" that is advertised as a game in the Gazette at Little Paddocks. The lights go out and they see a man with a gun then they hear shots, then they know it is not a game.

Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sits the corpse of Mrs. Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist is the only sign of the fatal injection that killed her. With only twenty-four hours available to solve themystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he'd overheard back in Jerusalem: You see, don't you, that she's got to be killed? Mrs. Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he'd ever met.

"Sheila Webb expected to find a respectable blind lady waiting for her at 19 Wilbraham Crescent - not the body of a middle-aged man sprawled across the living room floor. But when old Miss Pebmarsh denies sending for her in the first place, or of owning all the clocks that surround the body, it's clear that they are going to need a very good dectective. "This crime is so complicated that it must be quite simple, " declares Hercule Poirot. But there's...

Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot both make appearances in Agatha Christie's Double Sin and Other Stories, a sterling collection of short mystery fiction that offers double the suspense, surprise, and fun.

In one of London's most elegant shops, a decorative doll dressed in green velvet adopts some rather human, and rather sinister, traits.

A country gentleman is questioned about a murder yet to be committed.

While

...

"For God's sake, come!" Unfortunately, by the time Hercule Poirot received Monsieur Renauld's urgent plea, the millionaire was already dead-stabbed in the back, lying in a freshly dug grave on the golf course of his adjoining Merlinville estate. There's no lack of suspects: his wife, whose dagger served as the weapon; his embittered son, who would have killed for independence; and his mistress, who refused to be ignored-and each felt deserving of...

For an instant, the two trains ran side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth McGillicuddy witnessed a murder. She saw the body crumple. Then the other train drew away. Everyone but Miss Jane Marple was willing to dismiss her friend's distraught report. Diligently studying train routes, timetables, and tracks, Miss Marple imagines where the body might be. Her detective genius includes playing the little-old-lady card and, ultimately, winning the...