"'Then what do you mean by saying she is the third girl?'
Mrs. Ariadne Oliver snatched up 'The Times' and brought it to Poirot.
'Here you are - look. "THIRD GIRL for comfortable second floor flat, own room, central heating, Earl's Court." "Third girl wanted to share flat. 5 gns. own room." "4th girl wanted. Regent's Park. Own room." It's the way girls like living now. Better than P.G.s or a hostel.'
It is the 'third girl', Norma Restarick, who is the subject of the new and complex mystery that here engages Hercule Poirot. What is wrong with Norma? She walks in on Poirot at the breakfast table and announces that she 'may have committed a murder' and then walks out again, leaving Poirot to battle his way to the truth.
Has there been a murder? It would seem not. But Poirot repeats patiently and with increasing pressure: 'I want a murder.' In time the pattern fits together; many random and intriguing events become logical once the underlying design has been understood. Though the clues are there, it will be a very perceptive reader who detects the truth before Poirot reveals it.
Agatha Christie stands alone among crime novelists; millions of readers from every age and country are addicts to the work of this most absorbing and distinguished of story-tellers. Not one of those addicts will care to miss this brilliant new story, in which Hercule Poirot plays a full and dazzling role in the 'swinging London' of young people today." -- Inside cover