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)