The title refers to the nine strokes of a church bell to announce the death of a man. In this adaptation of Dorothy L. Sayers's intricate, nostalgic, and atmospheric novel of the same name, Lord Peter Wimsey, stranded in a New-Year's Eve snowstorm ca. 1930 in the fens of eastern England, becomes the guest of a local clergyman, an adept enthusiast of the esoteric, mathematical a...