Faced with two false confessions and numerous suspects after a despised civil magistrate is found shot in the local vicarage, Detective Inspector Slack reluctantly accepts help from Miss Marple.

When a despised magistrate is found shot to death in the library of the local vicarage, his wife and her lover, a portrait painter living on the church grounds, both confess to the crime. Miss Marple's keen powers of observation clear both of them of the crime, but other suspects abound. Included are the murdered man's daughter, who posed for the artist, a neurotic cleric who's embezzled church funds, the local doctor, an ex-convict who poached on the magistrate's land, and a missionary's enigmatic widow who argued with him the day before he was killed. An exasperated Inspector Slack must reluctantly accept help from the analytical Miss Marple.—Gabe Taverney ([email protected])

The village of St. Mary Mead has been raising a fund for the restoration of its medieval church. Due to recent reports about missing money from the church donations, the local magistrate Colonel Lucius Protheroe (who is also the fund's treasurer) insists on personally investigating the financial records of the church. He arranges to meet the vicar Leonard Clement at the vicarage at a specific time in order to start the investigation. Before the meeting, the vicar is lured away to tend to a supposedly dying old man. He finds that his car has been sabotaged, and so he makes the long journey on bicycle. The old man is actually in good health, and nobody is certain who made the hoax phone call to the vicar. The vicar misses the meeting with Lucius, who is left waiting in the study of the vicarage. Shortly later, Lucius is found murdered within the study. Someone apparently shot him from behind while he was writing a note. Lucius was a notoriously quarrelsome man who was widely disliked in the area. The murder suspects include his (much younger) wife Ann, his daughter Lettice (who openly despised him), his wife's lover Lawrence Redding, and a local poacher who Lucius liked to torment. Ann and Lawrence soon sign false confessions, with each claiming to have killed Lucius. The confessions include details which do not match the forensic evidence or the time-line of the murder. The amateur detective Jane Marple and Detective Inspector Slack team-up in investigating the murder, despite their mutual dislike.—Dimos I

Everyone in the village of St. Mary Mead seems to dislike Colonel Protheroe. So when he is found dead in the Vicarage study, Miss Marple is anything but surprised. There is any number of possible murderers. Protheroe's second wife Ann is having an affair with local artist Lawrence Redding and his daughter Lettice rebels at his strict nature. When church funds go missing, he accuses the assistant vicar of theft. Finally, there is new arrival in town who certainly seems to know more than a stranger should; could she have reason to cause his death? Once again, Insp. Slack finds Miss Marple's assistance invaluable, even if he does find her to be something of a busybody.—garykmcd