Miss Marple helps Gwenda and Giles Reed to solve an old crime when they move into their new home and Gwenda thinks that she has witnessed a murder there years before.

Poison pen letters are spread around a village, and result in suicides, but Miss Marple isn't convinced the writer has only contributed to their deaths by the letters.

When Tommy and Tuppence Beresford visit Tommy's elderly aunt at Sunny Ridge Nursing Home, Tuppence is told by another resident, Mrs. Lancaster, that the corpse of a child is hidden behind a fireplace. Tuppence realises there could be more to the old lady's words than she originally thought, especially when Tommy's aunt dies weeks later, and Mrs. Lancaster mysteriously disappears. With Tommy away on business, who better to help her than Miss Marple, who is visiting an old friend at the nursing home. With a cryptic painting on their hands, the two end up in the Norfolk village of Farrell St. Edmund to find the subject of their painting, a lone cottage in a wooded forest, while also trying to learn the closely-guarded secrets of the residents.

Heavy snow is falling in Dartmoor and the shadowy guests in the local hotel decide to take part in a seance in order to amuse themselves. But the evening takes on a more sinister edge when the table-turning suggests that Clive Trevelyan, an eminent politician, is in danger. Meanwhile, at Sittaford House, Miss Marple discovers that poisoned Turkish Delight has been sent to Trevelyan. John Enderby, Trevelyan's loyal right hand man, is so concerned for his friend's safety that he wants to check on him. Unfortunately, Trevelyan is staying at the hotel - six miles away and, with snow drifts blocking the roads, someone will have to make the journey on foot...