Lady Tresselian invites several guests to stay at her seaside house at Gull’s Point. Against her better judgment she has allowed her late husband’s ward, handsome tennis ace Neville Strange, and his wife Kay to come at the same time as Neville’s ex-wife Audrey. Other guests include Mary, Lady Tresselian’s companion; Ted, Kay’s ever-present friend; Thomas, a family friend who has just returned from spending the war in Africa and Lady Tresselian’s old friend Lord Justice Treves.

This is the very first Poirot/Hastings story. Set in 1916, we meet Captain Hastings as he is invalided out of the Great War and goes to convalesce at Styles Court, the family home of his great friend, John Cavendish. By an extraordinary coincidence, billeted in the village is a brilliant little retired detective with an egg-shaped head, who made a considerable impression on the Captain when he was in Belgium. Styles is not a happy household and in the blistering summer heat, tensions mount.

BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation starring June Whitfield as the sharp-witted spinster sleuth. Dolly Bantry, mistress of Gossington Hall, is enjoying a pleasant doze when suddenly her dreams take a strange turn. The housemaid Mary is telling her that there is a body in the library.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation starring June Whitfield as Miss Marple, the deceptively mild spinster sleuth. Wealthy businessman Rex Fortescue is found dead with rye grain in his pocket. His death is followed in quick succession by a woman dying while eating bread and honey, and a maid in her garden. Inspector Neele, in charge of investigating the spate of murders, consults with Miss Marple, who has an interesting and surprising theory to offer.

A dying woman confesses a terrible secret to her priest along with a cryptic list of nine names. Before he is able to uncover anything more, the priest is struck dead in the fog and the police discover the list in his shoe. Our hero Mark Easterbrook, a historian, learns of a secretive organisation known as The Pale Horse and of their supernatural connections in the village of Much Deeping. The list of names seems to foretell the deaths of several people and Mark must piece together the clues and unearth the connections between them all.