Book Review: The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie

M-U-R-D-E-R. It began as an innocent parlor game intended to while away the hours on a bitter winter night.

But the message that appeared before the amateur occultists at the snowbound Sittaford House was spelled out as loud and clear as a scream. Of course, the notion that they had foretold doom was pure bunk. Wasn’t it? And the discovery of a corpse was pure coincidence. Wasn’t it? If they’re to discover the answer to this baffling murder, perhaps they should play again. But a journey into the spirit world could prove terribly dangerous-especially when the killer is lurking in this one

Despite the production company’s twisting this to be a Marple story, Marple (nor Poirot) is nowhere to be found in this story. Instead we have an intelligent young woman who gets involved investigating a murder when her fiancée gets accused of doing the crime.

Big houses, death of the owner, small villages, suspicious characters, ouija boards predicting death (apparently correctly), money, snow drifts on Dartmoor and an escaped prisoner from the local criminal mental facility all leads to a compact mystery story.

Christie does write rather strong, forward women investigators, especially if they’re on the young side – lots of vigour etc.