If Miss Marple's village had boasted a bridge club, it might have been very like the one in Pemberton, the North Ontario setting for this Canadian bridge mysteryA" novel. The story evokes the slow pace of life in a small rural town, and whether there even was a murder is part of the mystery. The game of bridge is closely interwoven with the lives of the people in Pemberton - we meet the characters partly through bridge columns from the local paper, and in many cases, get to see how their personae at the bridge table differ from those in their everyday lives. The 'deadly endplay' of the title relates to a deal that comes up in a club game, and also refers to how the murder - if it was a murder - was committed.