It"s a historic event in detective fiction as the unflappable sleuth"s passion for gossip and cheerful recognition of the worst side of human nature leads her to a crime scene at the local vicarage. Colonel Protheroe, St. Mary Mead"s most loathed magistrate, has been found shot through the head. But it isn"t the "pompous old brute"s" murder that raises eyebrows, but rather the scandalous secrets it exposes. Those secrets are about to put St. Mary Mead on the map and send Miss Marple on the trail of a killer with something to hide.