The Third Floor Flat

A murder in Poirot's own block of flats: the case could not hit closer to home. The victim is connected to the new occupant of the flat two floors below his, and the discovery of the body turns the building into a crime scene. The shock of finding a body so close to home is immediate, and every resident becomes a suspect. And for once Poirot does not have to travel to meet the mystery. It has moved in next door.

The setting does the work here. In a building where everyone knows everyone else's comings and goings, the killer could be anyone within earshot, and the list of neighbours is long: Patricia Matthews, Donovan, Jimmy, Mildred Hope, Mrs Grant and Trotter. Every flat has a version of the night in question, and the versions do not agree. In a place this crowded, privacy is a fiction, and everyone is already keeping score. Poirot pieces together the sequence of events from a community that has suddenly stopped being friendly, while Japp does the official tramping up and down the stairs and Hastings offers sympathy and unhelpful theories in equal measure.

Michael Baker and Agatha Christie wrote it, Edward Bennett directed. David Suchet leads as Poirot, with Hugh Fraser's Hastings, Philip Jackson's Japp and Pauline Moran's Miss Lemon. Suzanne Burden plays Patricia Matthews, Nicholas Pritchard is Donovan, Robert Hines plays Jimmy, Amanda Elwes is Mildred Hope, Josie Lawrence takes Mrs Grant and Susan Porrett plays Trotter.

There is something especially satisfying about a murder mystery whose suspects are neighbours rather than strangers. The intimacy raises the stakes, and the awkwardness of living next door to a crime scene carries half the suspense. A body in the building, and a detective who cannot even escape it for a walk. The building gives up its secrets floor by floor, and Poirot collects them on the way down.