The roads being impassable to vehicles, Major Burnaby announces his intention to go to the village on foot to check on his friend, where he appears to find the prediction has come true.

Mrs Willett and her daughter Violet are the newly installed tenants of Sittaford House, a residence owned by Trevelyan, a retired Navy captain.

Two and a half hours later, just before 8 pm, in the middle of a blizzard, Major Burnaby is trudging up the path to the front door of Hazelmoor, the house in Exhampton where Captain Trevelyan now lives.

She is assisted by Charles Enderby, a Daily Wire journalist who, after the murder, presented a cheque for £5,000 to Major Burnaby for winning the newspaper's football competition in Exhampton.

The séance has scarcely begun, when Inspector Narracott steps in, in the company of Emily and Mr Duke, and charges Major Burnaby with the murder of Captain Trevelyan.

The New York Times Book Review's issue of 16 August 1931 posited that "Mrs. Agatha Christie's latest is up to her usual high standard and compares favourably with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, one of the best she ever did."

"[5] In a short review of 23 October 1931, the Daily Mirror said that, "A pair of snow shoes and a prize competition offer clues to the villain, who is well concealed.

Many of the usual elements are here, but also escaped convict (out of Baskervilles), séances, newspaper competitions and amateur investigator – young woman torn (as in Blue Train) between handsome weakling and hardworking, upright, born-to-success type.

The physical location of her fictional settlement of Sittaford closely matches that of Belstone, but its description also evokes Throwleigh where Christie owned a house.

In 1928, Christie had been planning a holiday to the West Indies when a chance conversation at a dinner party with a Commander Howe of the Royal Navy and his wife, who had just returned from his being stationed in the Persian Gulf, awakened an interest in her in visiting Baghdad, especially when the Howes pointed out that a part of the journey could be made by the famed Orient Express.

The Howes also mentioned that not far from Baghdad, an archaeological expedition was uncovering the remains of the ancient city of Ur, about which Christie had been reading with avid interest in The Illustrated London News.

Desperate to escape she travelled to Ur and made the acquaintance of the archaeological expedition's leader, Leonard Woolley (1880–1960) and his wife, Katharine (1888–1945).

Visitors to the dig were usually discouraged but Katharine Woolley was a great admirer of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and, being an imperious and difficult woman who always got her way in things large and small (Gertrude Bell described Katherine as "dangerous"), Christie was treated as an honoured guest.

[10]: 172–173  In 1929, Christie gave the Woolleys the temporary use of her then residence in Cresswell Place in London and they, in turn, invited her back to the dig at the end of the season.

They visited Nippur, Diwaniyah, Nejeif, Ukhaidir, and Kerbela and on a journey back to Baghdad, their car got stuck in the sand.

Mallowan was impressed by the way in which Christie, rather than succumbing to panic in the heat and dust, just lay down in the car's shadow to sleep while a Bedouin went off for help.

After being reunited with the Woolleys, most of the party made its way by stages to Greece where Christie received telegrams informing her that her daughter Rosalind (who was in the care of her sister at Abney Hall), was seriously ill with pneumonia.

The blurb on the inside flap of the dustjacket of the first edition (which is also repeated opposite the title page) reads: It was a typical Dickens Christmas; deep snow everywhere, and down in the little village of Sittaford on the fringe of Dartmoor, probably deeper than anywhere.

Inspector Narracott took the case in hand, and after wandering through a maze of false clues and suspects, he ultimately discovered the murderer of Captain Trevelyan.

It guest-starred Timothy Dalton as Trevelyan, Patricia Hodge as Mrs Evadne Willett, Carey Mulligan as Violet Willett, Laurence Fox as Jim Pearson, Zoe Telford as Emily Trefusis, James Murray as Charles Burnaby, Mel Smith as John Enderby and Rita Tushingham as Elizabeth Percehouse.

SonyLIV, in association with Agatha Christie Limited released Charlie Chopra, a Hindi web series based on the novel, in July 2023.