Agatha Christie

The famous Orient Express, thundering along on its three days' journey across Europe, came to a sudden stop in the night. Snowdrifts blocked the line at a desolate spot somewhere in the Balkans. Everything was deathly quiet. "Decidedly I suffer from the nerves, " murmured Hercule Poirot, and fell asleep again. He awoke to find himself very much wanted. For in the night murder had been committed. Mr. Ratchett, an American millionaire, was found lying...

The murder of Colonel Protheroe -- shot through the head -- is a shock to everyone in St Mary Mead, though hardly an unpleasant one. Now even the vicar, who had declared that killing the detested Protheroe would be 'doing the world at large a favour, ' is a suspect -- the Colonel has been dispatched in the clergyman's study, no less. But the picturesque English village of St Mary Mead is overpopulated with suspects. There is of course the faithless...

One of Agatha Christie's most famous novels, featuring her beloved detective Hercule Poirot--and her most surprising twist.The story that made Agatha Christie famous ends with one of her most dramatic twists. The villagers of King's Abbot are shocked when a wealthy local widow commits suicide and the very next day her fiancé, Roger Ackroyd, is stabbed to death. Dr. James Sheppard, the local physician, discovers the body of his friend and narrates...

"Hercule Poirot rushes to France in response to an urgent and cryptic plea from a client. But the Belgian detective arrives just too late: the man who had summoned him is found dead on a golf course, stabbed in the back with a letter opener and wearing an ill-fitting coat with a mysterious love letter in its pocket. Strange circumstances multiply, culminating in the discovery of a second body stabbed with the same murder weapon. While the local authorities...

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffee house is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified, but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one's mouth. Could there be a connection with...

It's seven in the morning. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing an evening dress and heavy makeup, which is now smeared across her cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry? The respectable Bantrys invite Miss Marple into their home to investigate. Amid rumors of scandal, she baits...

Agatha Christie's deft skill in plotting is on full display in the first adventure of Tommy and Tuppence, with seemingly disconnected events revealing a complex web of intrigue. Behind the plot is a formidable foe, a mysterious figure whose identity seems impossible to determine and whose plans include murder. Tommy Beresford and "Tuppence" Cowley's new firm, Young Adventurers Ltd opens for business only to have their first customer drop out of sight...

"The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiousity when the Gazette advertises 'A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddoks at 6.30 p.m.' A childish practical joke? Or a spiteful hoax? Unable to resiste the mysterious invitation, the locals arrive at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out and a gun is fired. When they come back on, a gruesome scene is revealed....

Hercule Poirot's relaxing holiday on the Cornish coast takes an unexpected turn when he meets young and pretty Nick Buckley. For it seems to Poirot that too many accidents have been happening to Nick and Poirot, with the help of Captain Hastings, is determined to prevent another accident becoming a tragedy. But even hiding Nick away in a nursing home does not prevent another attempt on Nick's life, and Poirot has to resort to subterfuge and cunning...

The placid village of Lymstock seems the perfect place for Jerry Burton to recuperate from his accident under the care of his sister, Joanna. But soon a series of vicious poison-pen letters destroys the village's quiet charm, eventually causing one recipient to commit suicide. The vicar, the doctor, the servants -- all are on the verge of accusing one another when help arrives from an unexpected quarter. The vicar's houseguest happens to be none other...