While recovering at a Caribbean hotel, Miss Marple listens to Major Palgrave’s stories until he begins to show her a photograph of a murderer and suddenly changes the subject. When he dies soon afterwards, she suspects that someone nearby recognised the image.
The resort gathers wealthy travellers, staff and expatriates in a setting whose apparent leisure depends on carefully managed relationships. Miss Marple joins forces with the severe millionaire Jason Rafiel and uses conversation, medical evidence and repeated patterns of victim selection to expose danger within the expanding world of post-war international tourism.