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Stories: A Murder is Announced
Promoted on both sides of the Atlantic as Agatha Christie's 50th book and published in 1950 by William Collins, A Murder is Announced is a staple of crime fiction and is often considered the best of all the Miss Marple novels. The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: ‘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 hoax intended to scare poor Letitia Blacklock? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out…

Stories: Murder is Easy
In a quiet English village, a killer is about to strike. Again and again.
Officer Luke Fitzwilliam is on a train to London when he meets a strange woman. She claims there is a serial killer in the quiet village of Wychwood. He has already taken the lives of three people and is about claim his fourth victim.
Fitzwilliam dismisses this as the ramblings of an old woman. But within hours she is found dead. Crushed by a passing car.
And then the fourth victim is found.
Each death looks like an accident. But in Wychwood nothing is as it appears....
Stories: Murder in Mesopotamia
When Amy Leatheran travels to an ancient site in the Iraqi desert to nurse the wife of a celebrated archaeologist, events prove stranger than she has ever imagined. Her patient’s bizarre visions and nervous terror seem unfounded, but as the oppressive tension in the air thickens, events come to a terrible climax – in murder. With one spot of blood as his only clue, Hercule Poirot must embark on a journey across the desert to unravel a mystery which taxes even his remarkable powers.
Stories: Mrs McGinty's Dead
‘Mrs McGinty’s dead!’ ‘How did she die?’ ‘Down on one knee, just like I!’ The old children’s game now seemed rather tasteless. The real Mrs McGinty was killed by a crushing blow to the back of the head and her pitifully small savings were stolen. Suspicion falls immediately on her lodger, hard up and out of a job. Hercule Poirot has other ideas – unaware that his own life is now in great danger.

Stories: The Murder at the Vicarage
‘Anyone who murdered Colonel
Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of
roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a favour!’ It was a careless
remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the
clergyman just a few hours later – when the colonel was found shot dead in the
clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems
to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.

Stories: The Moving Finger
A spate of poison pen letters wreaks havoc on an English village. Once a place of trust, now all inhabitants are full of accusations. Who could be writing the letters and why?

Stories: The Man in the Brown Suit
Pretty, young Anne Beddingfeld has come to London looking for adventure. But adventure finds her when a strange-smelling man falls off an Underground platform and is electrocuted on the rails. The police verdict is accidental death. But who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body before running away? Armed with only one cryptic clue, Anne is determined to track him down and bring the mysterious killer to justice.

Stories: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure. But for whom was the deadly poison really intended?
Marina’s frozen expression suggested she had witnessed something horrific. But, while others searched for material evidence, Jane Marple conducted a very different investigation – into human nature.

Stories: And Then There Were None
1939. Europe teeters on the brink of war. Ten strangers are invited to Soldier Island, an isolated rock near the Devon coast. Cut off from the mainland, with their generous hosts Mr and Mrs U.N. Owen mysteriously absent, they are each accused of a terrible crime. When one of the party dies suddenly they realise they may be harbouring a murderer among their number.
The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but is preparing to strike again… and again...

Stories: Black Coffee
Sir Claud Amory’s revolutionary new formula for a powerful explosive is stolen. Locking his house-guests in the library, Sir Claud switches off the lights to allow the thief to replace the formula, no questions asked. When the lights come on, he is dead, and Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings have to unravel a tangle of family feuds, old flames and suspicious foreigners to find the killer and prevent a global catastrophe.