American Title: Murder at Hazelmoor

A group of people in a lonely village on the edge of a moor play at "table-turning" (similar to a seance). They get a strange message: T-R-E-V-E-L-Y-A-N D-E-A-D M-U-R-D-E-R! Is it a joke? A fluke? Major Burnaby decides to walk to Exhampton to check on his good friend, despite the cold and snow. When he arrives at his friend Trevelyan’s cottage, no one comes to the door. He gets the local constable, and they discover that Trevelyan is dead—struck on the back of the head with a sandbag!

Suspicion falls on the mother and daughter who have been renting Trevelyan’s house, Sittaford, all winter. Why would they come to such an isolated place in the winter? Why would they offer Trevelyan so much money to rent Sittaford House that penny-pinching Trevelyan couldn’t refuse?

Other suspicious characters are Mr. Duke, who, although he’s lived in Sittaford village for several years, no one knows anything about; Trevelyan’s sister Jennifer, whose alibi for the time of the murder turns out to be unsubstantiated; and Trevelyan’s nephew Jim Pearson, who was staying at the hotel in Exhampton the night Trevelyan was killed. The police immediately arrest Pearson, and his fiancée Emily comes to Exhampton to clear her man’s name and find the real killer.

Meanwhile, a reporter from a newspaper happens to deliver a £5000 check to Major Burnaby—a prize for a crossword puzzle contest he entered. The reporter resolves to check into the mystery himself, and hopefully find a scoop. He and Emily (Pearson’s fiancée) decide to work together, and eventually they solve the murder.

Spoilers ahead! Scroll down for full spoilers of this book.

The killer is Trevelyan’s good friend, Major Burnaby. Trevelyan had been the one who entered the crossword contest and won the £5000; he just used Burnaby’s name and address. When Burnaby discovered this, his jealousy of his friend overflowed and Burnaby decided to kill him and keep the £5000 for himself.

Burnaby’s alibi rests on the fact that it would have taken him two hours to walk from Sittaford to Exhampton. But, as Emily realizes, the six miles from Sittaford to Exhampton is all downhill, and there was snow on the ground that night—Burnaby could’ve skied to Exhampton in about 10 minutes. And that’s just what he did: skied to Exhampton, knocked at the window, killed Trevelyan, hid his skis among Trevelyan’s sports paraphenalia, and sat around for another couple of hours, before raising the alarm.

Unfortunately, when clearing up the cottage, Trevelyan’s servant noticed and told others that a pair of boots is missing from Trevelyan’s effects; Emily searches Trevelyan’s cottage and finds the boots, hidden up a chimney. They are ski boots—she puts the pieces together and knows Burnaby is the killer!

Before we get from A to B, we learn some other facts:

• The mother and daughter rented Sittaford House because of the nearby Princeton prison. The father is in that prison and is planning a jail break, and no one would expect him to head toward Sittaford.
• The daughter met another of Trevelyan’s nephews, Brian Pearson, on their trip from Australia to England, and they fell in love. The daughter and Brian were meeting secretly on the moor.
• The mysterious Mr. Duke is actually the renowned ex-Inspector Duke of the CID.

I saw a big flaw in this mystery: if Burnaby skied to Trevelyan’s cottage, killed him, and then dried off and hid his skis among Trevelyan’s effects and his boots up a chimney, why would the manservant notice the "missing boots"? The boots weren’t Trevelyan’s; they were Burnaby’s. They would never have been sitting around Trevelyan’s cottage for the manservant to notice. If Burnaby hid the boots at the same time he hid the skis, the manservant would never have seen the boots at all.

Furthermore, I never noticed that Burnaby was so terribly jealous of Trevelyan, or that he was in dire need of money. The motive for Burnaby to murder his best friend didn’t seem well-substantiated to me.

On a positive note, the character of the fiancée, Emily, was very well done. Like many other of Christie’s heroines (Ginger, Frankie, Tuppence), she is determined, charming, and clever. I just wish she’d solved the mystery in some other way than the manservant noticing a missing pair of boots and talking about it.