The Mysterious Affair at Styles

(1920)

Set in the hotel of Styles Court in Styles, Essex County, England, this is Agatha Christie's first published novel featuring Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

Arthur Hastings is a retired military captain who wants to stay in a peaceful country home, but discovers it is anything but peaceful.

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An aging heiress, fatally poisoned; the door to her room locked from the inside, the charred remains of a will in her fireplace are some of the ingredients in this absorbing tale of murder, jealousy and greed. Agatha Christie's classic introduces Hercule Poirot, the brilliant and amazing Belgian detective.--Submitted by Anonymous

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Recent Forum Posts on The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Very unpredictable

To my mind, Agatha Christie is one of the most inventive and less predictable authors. As for “ The mysterious affair at Styles”, during all the reading I tried to guess who the murderer was (or the murderers). I suspected at first one character then another etc. The author had given many hints to reader, some of them I have understood, the others I have misinterpreted. One more thing I like: At first the behaviour of some characters seems absurd, but then occurs that every character has solid reasons to behave like that. It seems to me that the narrator, Hastings is alike Watson in Conan Doyle’s stories. Because both (Watson and Hastings) admire the talent of detective. And both are in the same situation: their friends-detectives didn’t tell them the details of crimes until the end. I like the image of Poirot, his attention and tolerance, wide knowledge, his love of order and neatness in everything. But I didn’t think that a detective can be so emotional.

Posted By Elizabeth19 at Fri 15 Jun 2012, 3:56 AM in The Mysterious Affair at Styles || 1 Reply

A Long Time Favorite

Agatha Christie Was Amazing.I've Read Body In The Library And The Mirror Crack'd With Miss Marple,And Witness For The Prosecution,But My Favorite Was Poirot.I Own Them All And Have Many Favorites-And Then There Were None,5 Little Pigs,Murder On The Orient Express,The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd,Peril At End House,Curtain,Death On The Nile,Evil Under The Sun,Appointment With Death - Each One's Solution Was A Shock And A Pleasant Surprise.She And Stephen King Were My Favorites In High School And Just Out Of It.And I Am So Glad The Literature Network Has Included Her.(Any Plans For More Christie?)

Posted By Armand at Sat 6 Aug 2005, 8:24 PM in The Mysterious Affair at Styles || 1 Reply

Hercule Poirot

I find that Dame Agatha Christie is the greatest crime writer ever. Her ingenuity lies in her ability to surprise the reader each time with the real criminal. Her best book was "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" because the murderer is a BIG surprise. The character of Hercule Poirot is one of literature's greatest creations and his powers of deduction are SUPER. He is a more eccentric detective than Sherlock Holmes and I find him more amusing.

Posted By Unregistered at Tue 24 May 2005, 5:07 PM in The Mysterious Affair at Styles || 3 Replies

No Subject

I always really enjoyed Agatha Christie's books and her skill to write mystery. I have read many of her books, but I really liked the first one I read, And Then There Were None, formerly known as Ten Little Indians. Just recently, I read Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, which was a good book too, but the ending is quite sad, but it's still a good book. Another one of her books I liked was The Seven Dials Mystery, which was quite a twist at the end. Most of her books that I have read, I have forgotten, like Sleeping Murder. I personally think that her most boring book so far must be The Hound Of Death, which has twelve different stories, and most of them are boring and confusing, but some were good.

Posted By Anonymous at Tue 24 May 2005, 5:07 PM in The Mysterious Affair at Styles || 0 Replies

Big Four

I think that Agatha Christie is awesome. My favorite one of her detectives was Poirot because he uses his "little gray cells". I really liked Murder on the Orient Express though my favorite book by her was The Big Four.