An exclusive golf course with a corpse in a hole, an aristocratic family with a damning downstairs secret, a brilliant doctor with blood on his hands. Suddenly it seemed that the nicest people were doing the nastiest things to each other and to themselves as death, drugs, and seduction plunge a pair of imperiled lovers ever deeper into the depths of a mystery. Beauty has turned beastly, and a master murderer has exercised a most fatal charm.

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...

A is for Ascher, cudgeled in Andover. B is for Barnard, strangled in Bexhill. C is for Clarke, struck down in Churston. Beside each body is an A.B.C. Railway guide; before each murder Hercule Poirot is notified. In one of Christie's most twisted tales, the meticulous Belgian sleuth must navigate the eerie maze of a serial killer's mind. D is for Doncaster, where the next victim dies ... E is for evidence, ingeniously analyzed.

"Luke Fitzwilliam does not believe Miss Pinkerton's wild allegation that a multiple murderer is at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood and that her local doctor is next in line. But within hours, Miss Pinkerton has been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Mere coincidence? Luke is inclined to think so--until he reads in the Times of the unexpected demise of Wychwood's Dr. Humbleby" --Back cover.

"From seat No. 9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No. 13, sat a countess with a poorly concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No. 8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No. 2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a...