
During the play, The Duchess of Malfi, when the line "Cover her face mine eyes dazzle she died young" is spoken, Gwenda screams out she saw an image of herself viewing a man saying those words strangling a blonde-haired woman named Helen. She goes to London for a visit with relatives, the author Raymond West, his wife, and his aunt, Miss Jane Marple. Further, a place that seems logical to her for a doorway between two rooms proves to have been one years earlier. When the workmen open a long sealed door, she sees the very wallpaper that was in her mind. She puts off painting and wallpaper, though she forms a definite idea for the little nursery. She re-opens the view to the sea from the terrace and renovates with new bathrooms and improved kitchen, staying in a one-time nursery room while the work progresses. In a short time, she finds and buys Hillside, a large old house that feels just like home. Newlywed Gwenda Reed travels ahead of her husband to find a home for them on the south coast of England. She aids a young couple who choose to uncover events in the wife's past life, and not let sleeping murder lie. The story is set in the 1930s, though written during the Second World War.

It was the last Christie novel, published posthumously, although not the last one Christie wrote featuring Miss Marple.

Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple's Last Case is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1976, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 1/4") bound in original publisher's black cloth with gilt lettering to spine in original jacket.
