"Lovely red-haired Hilary Craven wanted to die. The sleeping pills were ready on her bedside table, when a knock sounded on the hotel-room door ... With that knock, and the entrance of a cheerful, owlish young man, her plans for self-imposed death were dramatically altered. After hearing the strange story of a disappearing scientist, Hilary agreed to take on another woman's identity and a daring secret mission into the African desrt, without the slightest...

"Richard Abernethie's unscrupulous relatives, interested only in their respective shares of the rich man's estate, become suspects in Hercule Poirot's search for a killer." --

Lord Edgeware isn't just dead. He's murdered, colder than a poached salmon. The killer of this snobbish husband of a giddy movie star will need the air-tightest of alibis - because Hercule Poirot is on the case.

Movie star Charles Cartwright's houseguests drink martinis: clear, cold, and one of them poisoned. Rev. Babbington imbibes the fatal cocktail. But who would want to kill a kindly old clergyman?

A prominent attorney's wife dies of cyanide poisoning; but when he attempts to recreate the crime scene, he, too, is poisoned. The heiress to the estate is the prime suspect, but there have been apparent attempts on her life also.