Agatha Christie is the most published author of all time since Shakespeare. Her book sales are second only to those of his works and the Bible. More than a billion of Christie's books have been sold worldwide in English and the same number in other languages. She is the author of eighty detective novels and short story collections, twenty plays, two memoirs, and six psychological novels written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Her characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple have forever become archetypal heroes of the suspense genre.

This dark, sinister book was dedicated by Agatha Christie to the famous British humorist and author of the Jeeves and Wooster stories, P.G. Wodehouse. Specifically, the dedication included gratitude for 'his kindness in saying he liked my books.'

Writer Ariadne Oliver is invited to a friend's house, where preparations are in full swing for a Halloween celebration—a fun carnival for children and adults alike. One of the guests is a teenage girl known for her love of telling outlandish stories about all sorts of mysteries. Now she's astonished the crowd with a tale of having once witnessed a real murder! No one believed her. And then, that same evening, she's found... drowned in a bucket of water and apples! How utterly strange. Who would want a girl dead? Perhaps she really did see something that posed a danger to someone at the party? In any case, Hercule Poirot, who has undertaken to help Mrs. Oliver, his old acquaintance, is faced with the difficult task of tearing the murderer's carnival mask off and revealing his face to society...

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'She is undoubtedly a genius.' - Elizabeth George, New York Times bestselling author

'Christie is generally regarded as a brilliant master of the suspense plot. But she is something far more significant.' - The Guardian

'When it comes to murder dramas, no one is more inventive than Christie.' - Sunday Times

'Mrs. Christie makes the impossible story absolutely real.' - The Times

'...I still adore Christie's novels.' — Louise Penny

'Reading a Christie novel is like biting into a ripe apple: pure, crisp, and utterly satisfying...' — Tana French