Agatha Christie

The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile was shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway had been shot through the head. Hercule Poirot has to solve the mystery.

Among the towering red cliffs of Petra sits the corpse of Mrs Boynton, a tiny puncture mark on her wrist the only sign of what has killed her. Hercule Poirot has only 24 hours to solve the mystery.

When a beautiful woman is found strangled to death at a holiday resort, the murder appears to be a crime of passion. But could it have been something more evil and premeditated altogether? Hercule Poirot has his vacation interrupted in this mystery.

In appearance Hercule Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet like Hercules he had been responsible for ridding society of some unpleasant monsters. So Poirot, leading up to his retirement, decided to accept just 12 more cases.

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected that she was being blackmailed. Then came the news that she had taken her own life. But, before he found all the clues, he was murdered.

A poisoning many years ago may not have been accidental after all. Tommy and Tuppence Beresford have just become the proud owners of an old house in an English village. Along with the property, they have inherited some worthless bric-a-brac, including a collection of antique books. While rustling through a copy of 'The Black Arrow', Tuppence comes upon a series of apparently random underlinings. However, when she writes down the letters, they spell...

In this collection of stories, Hercule Poirot investigates the mystery of the film star and the diamond, the absurdly cheap flat, a million dollar robbery, the curse of a pharoah's tomb, a jewel robbery by the sea, and the abduction of a Prime Minister.

When Tommy and Tuppence visit an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they think nothing of her mistrust of the doctors. But then Mrs Lockett mentions a poisoned mushroom stew, and they find themselves caught up in an unexpected adventure.

As instructed, stenographer Sheila Webb let herself into the house at 19 Wilbraham Crescent. It was then that she made a grisly discovery: the body of a man sprawled across the living room floor.

An outbreak of kleptomania at a student hostel was not normally the sort of crime that aroused Hercule Poirot's interest. But the list of stolen items - including a slashed rucksack and a diamond ring - made no sense. And why was everyone so afraid?