It is 1962: the height of the Cold War and only months after the building of the Berlin Wall. Alec Leamas is a hard-working, hard-drinking British intelligence officer whose East Berlin network is in tatters. His agents are either on the run or dead, victims of the ruthlessly efficient East German counter-intelligence officer Hans-Dieter Mundt. Leamas is recalled to London - where, to his surprise, instead of being washed up and consigned to a desk he's offered a chance to have...
Lord Bellingham, Carsely's biggest landholder, has enraged locals by saying he is going to sell off their allotments to make way for a new housing development. So when he turns up dead, poisoned by antifreeze, nobody mourns his passing ... Agatha is introduced to three old-timers Harry Perry, Bunty Daventry and Josephine Merriweather, whilst visiting the Carsley’s allotments. They are lamenting the neglected...