Mr. Shaitana is famous as a flamboyant party host. Nevertheless, he is a man of whom everybody is a little afraid. So when he boasts to Hercule Poirot that he considers murder an art form, the detective has some reservations about accepting a party invitation to view Shaitana’s “private collection.” Indeed, what begins as an absorbing evening of bridge is to turn into a more dangerous game altogether.…

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, by the eager Mrs. Oliver who begins with psychological deductions from the bridge score cards. After many red herrings, skeletons in the cupboard and two more deaths, Battle lays his cards on the table.

How did a woman holding a pistol in her right hand manage to shoot herself in the left temple? And who destroyed the "eternal triangle" of love involving renowned beauty, Valentine Chantry?

The acknowledged 'Queen of Crime', P. D. James, was a past master of the short story, weaving together motifs of the Golden Age of crime-writing with deep psychological insight to create gripping, suspenseful tales. The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories contained four of these perfectly formed stories, and this companion volume contains a further six, published here together for the first time. As the six murderous tales unfold, the dark motive of revenge is revealed at the heart of each. Bullying schoolmasters receive their comeuppance, unhappy marriages and childhoods are avenged, a murder in the small hours of Christmas Day puts an end to the vicious new lord of the manor, and, from the safety of his nursing home, an octogenarian exerts exquisite retribution. The punishments inflicted on the guilty are fittingly severe, but here they are meted out by the unseen forces of natural justice rather than the institutions of the law. Once again, P. D. James shows her expert control of the short-story form, conjuring motives and scenarios with complete conviction, and each with a satisfying twist in the tail.

Theatre program.