Nine short stories, gathered for American readers in 1997, draw together magazine pieces that had never before been collected in book form in the United States. Several date from Christie's early writing years, while others come from the middle of her career, so the volume ranges across romance, the uncanny, and the puzzle plots for which she is best known. Two of her recurring detectives appear. Hercule Poirot untangles a stabbing concealed inside a Spanish chest, a locked-room-style problem that turns on jealousy and a literary echo. The title piece, the final story Christie wrote about the enigmatic Mr Harley Quin, returns the elderly Mr Satterthwaite to a chance reunion in a tea shop, where a single cryptic word sets him on guard at a family gathering. The remaining tales stand apart from any series sleuth: a treasure hunt set on the Isle of Man, a study of obsession and dread, portraits of love and self-deception, and stories shaded by the supernatural. Because the contents were never issued together in Britain, the book serves as the American counterpart to two parallel United Kingdom collections released in the same period, drawing on material split between them. The result samples the breadth of Christie's shorter work, moving from light romance to crime to the quietly strange, and closing on her last visit to one of her most unusual creations.