While en route from Syria to Paris, in the middle of a freezing winter's night, the Orient Express is stopped dead in its tracks by a snowdrift. Passengers awake to find the train still stranded and to discover that a wealthy American has been brutally stabbed to death in his private compartment. Incredibly, that compartment is locked from the inside. With no escape into the wintery landscape the killer must still be on board. Fortunately, the brilliant...

Murder is part of the curriculum at an exclusive school for girls in Agatha Christie's Cat Among the Pigeons, as the intrepid Poirot sets out to bring a stealthy killer to justice. Late one night, two teachers investigate a mysterious flashing light in the sports pavilion while the rest of the school sleeps. There, among the lacrosse sticks, they stumble upon the body of an unpopular games mistress-shot through the heart point-blank. The school is...

In Agatha Christie's classic crime adventure novel, They Came to Baghdad, a bright, young adventure seeker in the Middle East finds more excitement than she bargained for when a wounded spy expires in her hotel room. A secret superpower summit is being held in Baghdad, but the word is out, and an underground organization in the Middle East is plotting to sabotage the talks. Into this explosive situation appears Victoria Jones, a young woman with a...

Described by the queen of mystery herself as one of her favorites of her published work, Crooked House is a classic Agatha Christie thriller revolving around a devastating family mystery. 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...

Set during the dark days of World War II, Agatha Christie's N or M? puts two most unlikely espionage agents, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, on the trail of a pair of Nazi spies who have murdered Britain's top agent. World War II is raging, and while the RAF struggles to keep the Luftwaffe at bay, Britain faces a sinister threat from "the enemy within"-Nazis posing as ordinary citizens. With pressure mounting, the intelligence service appoints two improbable...

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is Agatha Christie's debut novel, published in 1920, and it marks the first appearance of Hercule Poirot, her iconic detective. The story is set during World War I at Styles Court, a sprawling manor in the English countryside. When the wealthy widow Emily Inglethorp is poisoned, her household is thrown into turmoil, and suspicion falls on various family members and associates, each with their own motives. The novel...

In Agatha Christie's classic mystery 4:50 From Paddington, a woman in one train witnesses a murder occurring in another passing one…and only Miss Marple believes her story. For an instant the two trains ran side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth McGillicuddy stared helplessly out of her carriage window as a man tightened his grip around a woman's throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away. But who, apart from Mrs. McGillicuddy's...

In Sparkling Cyanide, Agatha Christie seats six-including a murderer-around a dining table set for seven, one year to the day that a beautiful heiress was poisoned in that very room. Six people sit down to a sumptuous meal at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary-"rosemary for remembrance." A strange sentiment considering no one is likely to forget the night, exactly a year ago, that Rosemary Barton died at exactly...

In Agatha Christie's gripping international thriller Destination Unknown, a woman at the end of her rope chooses a more exciting way to die when she embarks upon an almost certain suicide mission to find a missing scientist. When a number of leading scientists disappear without a trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. And the one woman who appears to hold the key to the mystery is dying from injuries sustained in a plane...

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter with the language targeted at learners of English. A woman is murdered on a train. When Miss Marple telephones her friend Lucy Eyelesbarrowand asks her to...