Dead Man’s Folly

by Agatha Christie Book 31 in the Hercule Poirot series.

First published 1956

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Crime writer Ariadne Oliver asks Poirot to attend a village fête at Nasse House, where she has designed a staged murder hunt but senses that someone is directing her arrangements. During the event, the girl playing the victim is found genuinely dead in the boathouse.

Poirot studies the estate’s ownership, a recent disappearance and the apparently decorative choices built into the fête. The post-war transformation of country houses and their surrounding communities becomes part of a case about possession, memory and the ease with which entertainment can disguise a practical criminal plan.