The Sittaford Mystery : A Novel

A blizzard, a séance, and a remote country house at the edge of a moor provide the atmospheric ingredients for this classic murder mystery.

When the new tenant of Sittaford House, Mrs. Willett, invites her neighbors to tea on a snowy winter afternoon, several of her guests propose a playful séance as entertainment. But the game turns macabre when the spirits spell out a horrifying message—that Captain Trevelyan, the Willetts'' absent landlord, has just that moment been murdered.

Though most of those present are inclined to take this as an unpleasant joke, the Captain''s longtime friend, Major Burnaby, insists on making certain. There is no telephone service in their tiny village and the falling snow is fast rendering the roads impassable, so the Major sets out on a six-mile trek across a desolate moor through a raging blizzard to reach the Captain''s house—only to find that his murder hours earlier had been accurately foretold. As the roads are cleared in the days that follow, various relatives, journalists, police detectives, and amateur sleuths descend upon the scene to puzzle out the seemingly impossible crime.