THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING

Don't eat none of the plum pudding. One as wishes you well.

An English country house at Christmas time, with its cracking log fires and fine food, may seem an incongruous setting for a crime - but a sinister note left on his pillow warns Hercule Poirot to be on his guard.

It is the first of five baffing cases for Poirot: it is followed by a corpse in a Spanish chest; a quarrel that led to murder; a dead man who altered his eating habits; a victim who dreamt his own suicide. And for the icing on the cake - a sixth story featuring Miss Marple and her visit to Greenshaw's Folly...

• "Her Stories are like conjuring tricks - greatest expert in the art of misdirection." - Daily Telegraph
• "There is irresisitible simplicity and buoyncy of a Christmas treat about it all." - Times Literary Supplement