Agatha Christie

Ten people, each with something to hide and something to fear, are invited to an isolated mansion on Indian Island by a host who, surprisingly, fails to appear. On the island they are cut off from everything but each other and the inescapable shadows of their own past lives. One by one, the guests share the darkest secrets of their wicked pasts. And one by one, they die… Which among them is the killer and will any of them survive? -- from Amazon....

"Soon after Gwenda moved into her new home, odd things started to happen. Despite her best efforts to modernize the house, she only succeeded in dredging up its past. Worse, she felt an irrational sense of terror every time she climbed the stairs. In fear, Gwenda turned to Miss Marple to exorcise her ghosts. Between them, they were to solve a 'perfect' crime committed many years before"--Page 4 of cover.

While en route from Syria to Paris, in the middle of a freezing winter's night, the Orient Express is stopped dead in its tracks by a snowdrift. Passengers awake to find the train still stranded and to discover that a wealthy American has been brutally stabbed to death in his private compartment. Incredibly, that compartment is locked from the inside. With no escape into the wintery landscape the killer must still be on board. Fortunately, the brilliant...

As Miss Marple sat basking in the Caribbean sunshine, she felt mildly discontented with life. True, the warmth eased her rheumatism, but here in paradise nothing ever happened. Eventually, her interest was aroused by an old soldier's yarn about a murderer he had known. Infuriatingly, just as he was about to show her a snapshot of this acquaintance, the Major was suddenly interrupted. A diversion that was to prove fatal.

This collection of eight works shows how Agatha Christie's plays are as compulsive as her novels, with their colorful characters and ingenious plots providing yet more evidence of her mastery of the detective thriller. "-- P.[4] of cover.

Cheap satin and peroxide blondes were a rare sight in St. Mary Mead, at least before film-man Basil Blake bought a cottage and invited down the London crowd. Then a girl in a garish get-up is found strangled in Colonel Bantry's library, and it appears Basil is involved.

"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.

Responding to an urgent invitation, Miss Marple senses danger when she arrives at her friend Carrie Louise's sprawling estate. To Miss Marple's surprise, Carrie Louise's remote 'Gothic monstrosity' has been turned into a rehabilitation center for delinquent boys. Some of Carrie Louise's own children and grandchildren have also taken up residence at Stonygates and have mixed feelings about the way their mother is squandering the family fortune. Then...

"[T]he normally unflappable Hercule Poirot faces his most baffling investigation: the seemingly motiveless murder of the thirteenth guest at dinner party, who choked to death on a cocktail containing not a trace of poison...Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder..."-- Provided by publisher.

One minute, silly Heather Babcock had been babbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure, poisoned by a deadly cocktail. It seems likely that the cocktail was intended for the beautiful actress. But while the police fumble to find clues, Miss Marple begins to ask her own questions, because as she knows that even the most peaceful village can hide dark secrets.