The Angle of Attack: The Sittaford Mystery | 1931

(image found here)

"'This young gentleman that the police are holding on account of the murder, it's my belief that he's the one she's set on. And she's come up here to nose about and see what she can find out. And mark my words,' said Mrs. Curtis, rattling china, 'if there's anything to find out she will find it!'" 

- The Sittaford Mystery, p. 111

The Sum of It:

I could not have picked a better week to read this book. We don't often see much snow here in Southern Tennessee, so when we do it is a BIG DEAL. So it was with gentle snowflakes falling that I set about reading the first and most blizzardy of this week's Agathas: The Sittaford Mystery (note: this book is, like several of Agatha's novels, known by a different name in the UK: The Murder at Hazelmoor.)

A hefty snowstorm plays a huge role in this 1931 mystery. A group of neighbors in a tiny village get together one snowy evening for tasty treats and other parlor merriment. Having blown through all other entertainment options, the eclectic bunch decides on table turning (aka 1931 Ouija board). In the course of events, the group receives a message from the spirits that local grumpy old man (and crossword puzzle enthusiast) Captain Trevelyan has been MURDERED. Although not everyone is convinced of the veracity of these "spirit" claims, Captain Trevelyan's bestie, Major Burnaby, rushes out to trudge several miles in the blizzard to check on his pal - just in case. Alas, Captain Trevelyan is in fact super dead (#deathbysandbag) in his cottage home, and was apparently killed at the time of the group received the mysterious message. Turns out that Captain Trevelyan was super stingy with money (thus having hoarded quite a bit of it by the time he died) and, having a very girls-are-gross attitude due to a jilting as a young man, doesn't have any immediate family members who benefit from his death. He does, however, have a sister and several nieces and nephews, one of whom decided to go and pay his uncle a fairly abrasive visit on the day of Trevelyan's death. And so said nephew Jim Pearson is carted off to jail as the police's number one suspect in the case.

Perhaps by 1931 Agatha had not yet fully established her own writing patterns, so for that or some other reason this book is oddly devoid of any of the regular Agatha Christie sleuths, featuring instead the police work of Inspector Narracott, a smart, quiet guy who spends a great deal of the first third of the book methodically interviewing the village's sparse population. However, Narracott is not the only person working to solve this crime. Determined to see her beloved, but not terribly bright, fiancee cleared of the crime, the plucky, charming, and (I have no doubt) 100% fashionista Emily Trefusis shows up to do some detective work of her own. Emily teams up with cute young reporter Charles Enderby (dare I tease #lovetriangle) and what ensues is a whole lot of witty banter, red herrings, and, at the heart of it, a desire to make sure the right man is put away.

The YOA Treatment: 

(image from here)

I, like many, many others, have become a huge fan of popular real crime stories like those told in the Serial podcast or the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer. It has been so fascinating to see in both of those cases how the listeners/viewers have turned into "vigilante investigators" and have, in both instances, found or reinterpreted evidence that was missed by the initial police investigation. People across the world who listened to the Serial podcast took Adnan Syed's case seriously enough to seek legal documents, further testimony, and launch their own efforts to seek another evaluation of the case. The Making a Murderer documentary series has resulted in serious calls to the Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, for a pardon for the series subject Steven Avery.

Though Agatha clearly respected the role of a true sleuth like Poirot, she demonstrated a real penchant for the vigilante investigator in a number of her books. We see this same kind of non-official-police investigation in Sittaford through the efforts of Emily and Charles (as well as in Monday's book, 1924's The Man in the Brown Suit), and even in the nature of Tommy & Tuppence Beresford, who appear in several stories, and one of Agatha's most famous characters, the amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple. Emily talks a lot in Sittaford about wanting to provide a different "angle of attack" on the case - and that's exactly what she does although (obvi) without the use of the Internet.

Agatha wrote from what she knew, whether settings, characters, or even plot points. In her days touring the world, spending time with friends as a young lady in Torquay, working with other amateur pharmacists and nurses in wartime dispensaries, and even admiring her older sister Madge's cleverness, Agatha developed a healthy respect for what an ordinary person could accomplish. Her characters prove this over and over, and the Sittaford Mystery is an excellent early example of what a vigilante sleuth, pulled from everyday life, could do.

-A.