Agatha Christie’s first ever murder mystery.

With impeccable timing Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance on to the English crime stage. 

Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about ‘a lot of sharks’. And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion and impending evil. 

A shattered coffee cup, a splash of candle grease, a bed of begonias… all Poirot required to display his now legendary powers of detection.

I purchased a copy of this book for my own reading.

Towards the back end of 2024, I started reading the queen of crime fiction, Agatha Christie. I read some seasonal compilations of stories featuring a host of different characters, but one icon stood out to me. Hercule Poirot. I loved those stories, and they reminded me of the classic David Suchet TV series that I loved to watch.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first Agatha Christie crime novel, and the first Poirot outing, so it was the obvious place for me to start my journey. And it delivered in every way. First and foremost, it showed how perfect the casting of David Suchet was in the titular role for the TV series. It’s wonderfully written, building the dynamic of the group of characters and events leading to that one crime – the sudden and unexplained death of the matriarch of the house.

Every character stood to gain in some way from the crime, making it the perfect crime novel. There was no single suspect as everyone could have done it. The novel is filled with twists and turns that Christie wove on command. And Poirot, upon making his arrival, is such a fantastic character. Charming, affable and yet so often unaware of the social cues around him, he works through the clues methodically. But the thing that pleased me the most – the big reveal. Poirot gathers all of the suspects into a room and works through the crime, pointing out why everyone could be guilty before delivering the damning piece of evidence. A wonderful, cosy read that makes me want to read the rest of the series now.

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