The Sittaford Mystery: Agatha Christie’s Snowbound Séance That Announces a Murder on Dartmoor
At a snowbound gathering, some of the guests take part in a home-made séance. Everyone treats it as a game staged by the participants themselves, until the spirits announce the murder of Captain Trevelyan.
Author: Agatha Christie (1890–1976)
Title: The Sittaford Mystery (1931; US title Murder at Hazelmoor)
Format: English Kindle edition, 289 pages
Scope: Standalone mystery set on Dartmoor
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/B0046REG94 (ASIN B0046REG94)
A Message From the Spirits
At that moment most of the guests are shocked and frightened, and one of them sets off to check on the Captain, even though the snow makes the journey almost impossible. Soon they realise that Trevelyan’s death is real. Everyone is stunned, and they avoid talking about it.
An Arrest and a Determined Fiancée
The dead man’s nephew is then arrested, because he is the one who inherits. His fiancée, however, refuses to give up and starts investigating on her own. With the help of a journalist, she talks to everyone who was at the gathering and asks them anything that might be relevant; the journalist, of course, gets his story and reports every new development.
Snowbound on Dartmoor
The village of Sittaford lies high on Dartmoor, cut off by heavy snow. Its grandest house has been rented for the winter by a South African widow, Mrs Willett, and her daughter Violet, who seem oddly eager to entertain their neighbours in such a remote spot. Captain Trevelyan, the owner, has moved to the town of Exhampton, six miles away, and it is there that he dies, at the very hour the spirits announced, while the guests at Sittaford were turning the table.
Major Burnaby’s Walk
The guest who sets off through the snow is Major Burnaby, Trevelyan’s oldest friend, who walks the six miles to Exhampton in a blizzard to make sure the Captain is safe. His journey is one of the most memorable scenes in the book, and the timing of events on that terrible evening, who was where and when, becomes the heart of the puzzle. Christie loved this kind of problem, and she plays it with great skill.
Emily Trefusis
The real hero is Emily Trefusis, the fiancée of the arrested nephew, Jim Pearson. She is practical, charming and quite ruthless in getting what she wants, and she recruits the young journalist Charles Enderby as her assistant, cheerfully using his infatuation for her own purposes. She is one of Christie’s most enjoyable amateur detectives, and many readers wish she had appeared in more books.
Christie and the Séance
Christie was fascinated by spiritualism, which was hugely popular in Britain in the years after the First World War, when many grieving families tried to contact the dead. Here she uses the séance as a brilliant opening device, raising the question of whether the message was supernatural, a coincidence or something more sinister. The answer, as always with her detective novels, is entirely rational.
Adaptations
In 2006 the novel was adapted for the Marple television series, with Miss Marple added to the story; readers will find the book quite different, and much more satisfying.
Tip
Keep an eye on the clock: in this mystery, times matter more than usual.
And enjoy the wintry atmosphere: this is an ideal book for a cold evening by the fire, with the snow, the isolation and the eerie séance creating a mood that few of Christie’s other novels can match.
Try to solve it before Emily does.
The answer is fair, and cleverly hidden.
Why Read It
A wintry, atmospheric mystery with no Poirot or Marple, led instead by one of Christie’s most resourceful amateur detectives. The snow-bound Dartmoor setting is wonderful.
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