"A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6:30 p.m." The ad shocks the villagers of Chipping Cleghorn—particularly Letitia Blacklock, owner of Little Paddocks. Curious locals appear at the appointed time, and when the lights suddenly go out, a man is indeed shot dead. But who killed him? An ingenious riddle is set for Miss Marple in this 50th book by Agatha Christie, from 1950, in a handsome new edition that should be in everyone's mystery library. The star of a dozen novels and twenty short stories, the shrewd and curious Jane Marple was inspired by Agatha Christie's grandmother and her cronies in the leafy London suburb of Ealing. Miss Marple's independent mind and acute sense of human nature—not unlike Christie's own—have made her an enduring prototype in detective fiction.

"Agatha Christie gave readers the world over a vivid sense of English life, especially in her depiction of the small village where nothing happens—until, of course, a murder is discovered."—Jacqueline Winspear