The Mysterious Affair at Styles
1920
The book that launched the queen of mystery begins with a poison at an English country estate. Hercule Poirot, a fastidious Belgian refugee from the Great War, has barely settled into quiet retirement when his friend Hastings arrives at Styles Court, only to find the formidable matriarch Emily Inglethorp dead, victim of strychnine. The household is thick with suspects: the victim's much younger husband, her resentful stepsons, a devoted but secretive companion, and a visiting poison specialist who happens to be in the village. Everyone has something to hide, and everyone had opportunity. What follows is a masterclass in misdirection, as Christie's debut deploys false clues and shifting suspicions with an assurance that would define the Golden Age. Poirot's celebrated grey cells must sift through generations of family dysfunction, a disputed will, and the small lies that calcify into alibis. The result is both a puzzle of rare intricacy and a portrait of a world shaken by war, where old certainties have crumbled and justice depends on a retired Belgian detective with immaculate whiskers and an irrepressible need to put the world in order.
