The Mysterious Affair at Styles

 Agatha Christie's 1st book in the series of 66 murder mysteries that she wrote.

I've chosen a sampling of some of my favourite covers from over the decades of this book. My favourite is the middle one on the bottom row. Which is yours?

The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920. The first of the 66 murder mysteries that would make Agatha Christie famous and give her the title of the Queen of Crime. The original cover wasn't, in my opinion, terribly inspiring. I'm not even sure what scene from the book inspired the art.

The cover of the first UK edition by Alfred James Dewey

The latest edition, celebrating 100 years of Agatha Christie.

This is also the first Hercule Poirot book, and (spoiler alert) Styles is the chosen setting for not just her first HP book, but also her last when Curtain: Poirot's Last Case is published very shortly before her own death.

Agatha Christie's signature really is stately old homes, posh people and English villages and The Mysterious Affair at Styles sets the scene nicely with this theme, harking back to a time when well-to-do families had live-in, loyal servants. It's the golden age of modern society, when the world thought they'd seen the war to end all wars and had come through the depression. There is reference to this in The Mysterious Affair at Styles when we first meet Captain Arthur Hastings who happens to mention to his old friend John Cavendish about this amazing little Belgian policeman he once met.

So we come to Styles, a stately home set in the village of Styles St. Mary, in Sussex, UK. Hastings has come to stay with his old friend John Cavendish and his family, whom he has known all his life. They were at school together. John and his brother Lawrence were adopted by the now Mrs Inglethorpe, the matriarch of the family and full of wealth and influence. She has recently married Alfred Inglethorpe, who nobody seems to like, including Evelyn Howard, the brusque but loyal member of the household.

Agatha Christie wrote the book during the First World War, and Hercule Poirot is said to be inspired by the Belgian refugee soldiers that she helped to nurse. It is said that she was dared by her sister Madge to write a book where nobody would guess the killer. Her first manuscript was rejected by Hodder and Stougton (wow, that just shows you how publishers often get it wrong)! It was finally accepted by the publisher Bodley Head on the condition that she changed the last scene from the court room to the library at Styles Court. What a brilliant suggestion, because this becomes a signature of Poirot - his grand reveals in the private houses of the people he is investigating. 

The book is dedicated "to my mother." It was first published as a serial in The Times newspaper and became quite popular with its readers. It made Agatha Christie £25, but it launched her career and she and her husband named their own house 'Styles.'

Agatha Christie named her own house 'Styles'

Personal Opinion

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is not my most favourite Agatha Christie. I find it quite boring actually. I think, as she continued to write, she got better and better and Hercule Poirot and Hastings are developed well over the course of her career. She introduces these two characters to us nicely in this book and in my opinion they overshadow the story, but that could be because I am very familiar with her stories now, and have read most of them multiple times (huge fan since a child)! I still remember the shock of learning who the murderer(s) were when I first read it, and the murderer in this first book even gets a mention in the last book Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. But, for my taste, there are too many 'red herring' clues in this book, too much running around by Poirot instead of using his 'little grey cells' that we will become so fond of over the course of these books. 

What I found quite a cool addition to the book, is the plan of the house and where all the characters slept and then the plan of the bedroom of Mrs Inglethorpe. It draws the reader in to have an attempt at being an armchair sleuth. It allows your own brain to join Poirot and help solve the crime. This is a genius streak on the part of the publisher/author and is characteristic of all her books, never revealing the killer until the very end, but as Poirot says to Hastings in this book, giving all the same clues that he has. But can anyone beat the brain of the masterful Hercule Poirot? He would say it is 'impossible.'

For a movie adaptation that is fairly faithful to the original story, you can see it here.

For the audio version go here.

For the modern book version, find it here.

For a look at the first edition and how much it might cost you to own it, go here.