The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I finally had the pleasure to pick up The Mysterious Affair at Styles with a Book Club I’m a part of. I read it over the course of the past 24-hours, and we had a Solve-A-Long with full discussion tonight.
This was actually Christie’s debut novel, which I was unaware of upon starting, and unsurprisingly, the Queen of Mystery had most of us stumped!!
This story features Hastings as our narrator. He’s gone to visit his friend, Jonathan Cavendish, at his family estate of Styles. It’s there that we meet all of Jonathan’s family, including the eventual victim, the elderly Emily Inglethorp, Jonathan’s step-mother.
It’s believed the lady was poisoned, but she was locked in her room at the time, so how exactly did that occur?
Hastings, knowing his good friend, the ever keen, Hercule Poirot, is currently living close by, extends an invitation to Poirot to come to Styles, hoping he can figure it all out.
Poirot arrives and quickly begins his investigation, including performing a thorough examination of the victim’s room and interviewing witnesses. I loved following along as he methodically worked his way through the property and the people; Hastings at his heels the whole time.
There were a lot of suspects, basically everyone at Styles, with a variety of different motives. I had my theories, but none of them turned out to be true. One of them was close, but the reasons were all wrong.
Christie got me again. She’s bloody brilliant. She has this uncanny ability to give the Reader so much that they don’t see the truth hidden in the details. It makes for a fun story.
Poirot is a quirky little man with a big personality. I’ve actually read more Marple books than Poirot, but this reminds me that I still have a long and exciting way to go in my Christie journey.
Overall, this was such an enjoyable read, with a great cast of characters an an intriguing mystery. I would definitely recommend it to any Christie fans, Murder Mystery fans, or Locked Room Mystery fans.
There’s so much to love within these pages. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!