The Sittaford Mystery
Author: Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie has been my favorite author since I was 9 and read my first Hercule Poirot novel (It was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in case anybody is curious). I bought a box set of Poirot paperbacks at a garage sale for the exorbitant price of $4 (and spent a lot of time mowing the lawn that summer to pay my mom back for giving me the cash to buy books!) and was whisked away into Christie's golden age mystery world of waxed moustaches, sinister plots and murders at country estates. :) Flash forward mumble-mumble-ahem years, and I still LOVE Christie's style and characters.
I always wanted to read all of Christie's writing....but could never find a comprehensive list. Back in the pre-internet days, I lived in a small town in BFE Kansas that had no bookshop and a very small library. I made a list of her novels using book lists in paperbacks I bought...and found many of her books over the years. I have a shelf filled with old, disheveled but much loved, paperbacks. But I could never find them all. And some were published under multiple titles....making it really rough to tell what book was actually which. :)
But.....the internet is a wonderful tool....and I've finally started on my quest to read my way through Christie. In publication order (as best I can, with some backtracking when I find I have gone off track) and much meandering down rabbit holes when necessary (references to historical events, places, or phrases/language that is dated by almost 100 years of time passing). I'm loving it!
I had to smile when I reached The Sittaford Mystery in my travels through Christie. This is a Christie novel that I had never read before. And not only that, it was the first Christie novel to be published under one title in the US and another in the UK. In 1931, the book was published in the United States as The Murder at Hazelmoor. Later that year, the book was published in the UK as The Sittaford Mystery. This story doesn't feature one of Christie's well-known detectives, but instead focuses on a group of people in two English villages following a blizzard. Throw in a supernatural element -- a session of "Table-Turning'' that hints at a murder -- and Christie weaves an interesting tale of cold, winter murder!
Very entertaining mystery! I liked the fact that the characters were just randoms thrown in together and not Poirot/Marple, etc. This particular plot worked better that way. I listened to the audio book version of this story. Narrated by Hugh Fraser (who played Hastings in the Poirot television series), the audio is about 6.5 hours long. Fraser does an excellent job of narrating!
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on this one.... Table Turning. Before oujia boards became all the rage, spiritualists, magicians and charletans used table turning to contact the spirit world. Participants would sit around the table and when there was a spirit with a message, they would speak the alphabet waiting for the table to dip or move at the correct letter. Movement of the table or even raps were used as signals. Definitely a fun and easily manipulated parlor trick for amusement. Christie, of course, turned it to sinister, murderous ends!
The television series Agatha Christie's Marple adapted this story in Season 2, Episode 4. I had never watched the show before....so was very interested to check it out. Jane Marple is played by Geraldine McEwan. I liked her portrayal of the character, but was disappointed in the episode. Significant changes to the plot were made....so many in fact that it really is no longer the same story. Ick. The story is great the way Christie wrote it --- why mangle it just to add Miss Marple in the mix?? It could easily have been kept mostly intact and Marple still interjected into the investigation....but they made major plot changes. Boo!
Moving on to the next book in my Christie adventure: Peril at End House! Hercule Poirot!
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