"What I intend to say to you will come as a shock . . ." With these words, Lady Athelinda Playford--one of the world's most beloved children's authors--springs a surprise on the lawyer entrusted with her will. As guests arrive for a party at her Irish mansion, Lady Playford has decided to cut off her two children without a penny . . . and leave her vast fortune to someone else: an invalid who has only weeks to live. Among Lady Playford's visitors are two strangers: the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited--until Poirot begins to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murder. But why does she seem so determined to provoke a killer? And why--when the crime is committed, despite Poirot's best efforts to stop it--does the identity of the victim make no sense at all? Addictive, ferociously clever, and packed with clues, wit, and murder, Closed Casket is a triumph from an author whose work is "as tricky as anything written by Agatha Christie" (Alexander McCall Smith, New York Times Book Review, on The Monogram Murders)