A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.
A murder investigation is reignited in a house that is considered haunted by the Lawrenceton locals and where years ago Aurora and Sally, as teenagers, discovered a body.
Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child. When she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, reasonable doubts give way to willful belief.
A routine investigation of a shocking murder takes a bizarre twist when the killer contacts the reporter and appoints him his personal spokesman. As the killer's calls and clues increase, the reporter is lured into a deadly trap.
At the insistence of Ruth Van Rydock, an old schoolfriend who is convinced that there is something wrong, Miss Marple agrees to visit 'Stonygates', the country house of Ruth's sister.