The novel that introduced both Christie and her immortal creation Hercule Poirot. Still as ingenious all these years later as we follow the quaint detective display his incomparable powers of detection.
A wealthy woman is poisoned at an English country manor and the world of detective fiction is changed forever. With The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie launched herself, and her beloved Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, into popular culture history.
When Captain Arthur Hastings runs into an old friend, John Cavendish, and is invited to the family estate at Styles, he has a "premonition of approaching evil." Outside, the Great War is still raging, and England is in upheaval. Cavendish's widowed stepmother has brought the turmoil home by marrying a sinister-looking younger man, and when she is killed, presumably poisoned with strychnine, he becomes the first and most obvious suspect. But other family members may also have had motives for murder. Luckily, one of the Belgian refugees from the German occupation staying at Styles is a retired police detective: Hercule Poirot is on the case.
'Almost too ingenious ! very clearly and brightly told.' Times Literary Supplement
'Very well contrived.' Sunday Times
'Altogether a skilful tale and a talented first book.' Daily News
'The most ingenious and absorbingly interesting tale of sensations and mystery we have read for a long time.' Bookman
'Well written, well proportioned, and full of surprises. Lovers of good stories will, without exception, rejoice in this book.' The British Weekly
Author
About Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott and saw her work translated into more languages than Shakespeare. Her enduring success, enhanced by many film and TV adaptations, is a tribute to the timeless appeal of her characters and the unequalled ingenuity of the plots.
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