Hercule Poirot is pulled out of retirement to face something bigger than a single murder: a shadowy international organization run by four masterminds — a Chinese strategist, an American financier, a French scientist, and a mysterious "Destroyer" whose identity Poirot can't pin down. As the case escalates from theft to political assassination to attempts on Poirot's own life, he has to out-think an enemy that, for once, is playing on his level.A change of pace from Christie's usual country-house murders — more thriller than puzzle-box mystery, with Poirot facing an adversary built to actually threaten him.