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From the Back Cover In appearance Hercule Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet - reasoned the detective - like Hercules he had been resposible for ridding society of some of its most unpleasant monsters. So, in the period before he retired, Poirot made up his mind to accept just twelve more cases: his self imposed 'Labours'. Each would go down in the annals of crime as a heroic feat of deduction.

"Mr. Shaitana is a strange and wealthy collector of snuff boxes and other objets d'art. One evening he invites two specialists, Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard and crime novelist Ariadne Oliver, to a dinner party to view his special collection: four people who have committed murder and gotten away with it. As they play bridge after dinner, Shaitana is daringly murdered by someone at the party. Battle sets out to solve the crime aided, of course,...

Hercule Poirot stood on the clifftop. Here, many years earlier, there had been a fatal accident. This was followed by the grisly discovery of two bodies--a husband and wife who had been shot dead. But who had killed whom? Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder? Poirot delves into the past and discovers that "old sins leave long shadows."--- Book Description.