And then there were none: "Ten ..." Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious "U. N. Owen." "Nine ..." At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead. "Eight ..." Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one ... as one by one ... they begin to die. "Seven ..." Which among them is the killer and will any of them survive? Crooked house: In the sprawling, half-timbered mansion in the affluent suburb of Swinly Dean, Aristide Leonides lies dead from barbiturate poisoning. An accident? Not likely. In fact, suspicion has already fallen on his luscious widow, a cunning beauty fifty years his junior, set to inherit a sizeable fortune, and rumored to be carrying on with a strapping young tutor comfortably ensconced in the family estate. But criminologist Charles Hayward is casting his own doubts on the innocence of the entire Leonides brood. He knows them intimately. And he's certain that in a crooked house such as Three Gables, no one's on the level ... Endless night: When penniless Michael Rogers discovers the beautiful house at Gypsy's Acre and then meets the heiress Ellie, it seems that all his dreams have come true at once. But he ignores an old woman's warning of an ancient curse, and evil begins to stir in paradise. As Michael soon learns: Gypsy's Acre is the place where fatal "accidents" happen.