The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are summoned by a newspaper notice to the house of Letitia Blacklock, anticipating an evening of murder games. But things become all too real when an intruder is shot dead.

Miss Marple investigates the wealthy Crackenthorpe clan, believing a body to be hidden on their estate after a visiting friend witnesses a brutal strangling murder occurring on a passing train.

No one seems surprised when Colonel Lucius Protheroe, the most disliked person in St. Mary Mead, is found murdered in the local vicarage. Red herrings abound, especially when his widow and her lover both confess to the murder.

Dolly Bantry calls upon her old friend Miss Marple when the strangled corpse of an unknown blonde girl is found in the library of her home, Gossington Hall.