"You cannot fail to be reminded of Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles," comments Christie biographer Charles Osborne of The Sittaford Mystery -- in which remote, snowbound Dartmoor is the setting for some strange goings-on, and of a grisly murder.

The novel opens at Sittaford House, the grand manor owned by Captain Joseph Trevelyan of the Royal Navy, though he does not live there -- preferring the income from renting it out. In the midst of a blinding snowstorm, the occupants of Sittaford House have chosen for their evening's diversion ... a séance. They receive a chilling message: 'Captain Trevelyan. dead. murder.'

Is this black magic or simply a macabre joke? Unfortunately, it is the truth -- and it is up to our plucky young heroine, Emily Trefusis, to prove that her fiancé, Captain Trevelyan's nephew, is not, as he has been accused, the murderer. But who is the murderer? And what will he or she do in the wilds of Dartmoor to end Emily's investigation?