 Many of those in the village of St. Mary Mead look with distaste at Colonel Protheroe. He fancies himself more important than others do and tends to treat people as inferiors. His wife Anne is younger than he, and seems ill-suited to the marriage. Plus she may be having an affair with a young painter using the vicarage shed as a workshop. When what may have been a failed attempt at the colonel s life injures amateur sleuth Jane Marple she has a front row seat to watch the comings and goings from her front yard, where she is laid up with a cast on her ankle. Across the road in the vicarage the colonel meets his death and Jane has witnessed all the suspects as they went in and out of the building around the time of the murder. It s up to her to piece it all together and solve the mystery.