Christie said writing this novel "was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best." From the back cover: "The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of CharlesHayward, fiancé of the late millionaire’s granddaughter."