The Mysterious Affair At Styles
by Agatha Christie
Genres: Crime, MysteryPages: 298
Series: Poirot #1
Rating:
Synopsis: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.
For someone who loves Golden Age mysteries, I’ve read shockingly little of Agatha Christie’s work. So when I had the random thought to try using the app Serial Reader again, the first serial I picked was Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In the past I haven’t been the greatest fan of Poirot per se (while thinking that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was pretty genius), and I can’t say my mind was changed like a lightning bolt by this one.
Which is not to say it’s not a fun mystery, but I disliked Hastings quite a bit. It’s the whole trope of a helper to the detective, who is a lot less clever, draws wrong conclusions, and both leads the reader astray and bigs up the detective in comparison. It’s a trend that started with Holmes and Watson (though Watson’s cleverer than many of the type, including Hastings), and just… not one I particularly enjoy. Perhaps that’s why, by and large, I prefer Sayers and Lorac.
Still, the solution is fun, and I enjoyed the read — it’s just inclined to make me think that Christie’s enduring popularity is in part due to her sheer prolific output, and thus the memorability of her name. Lorac is, for my money, a better writer, and much less well-known.
This does come across as rather negative, evaluating the book by what it’s not, but I find I have very little to say about the book in and of itself. It’s a fun mystery, I didn’t immediately see the solution, and if you’re interested in the Golden Age of crime, it’s definitely of interest.
Rating: 3/5
Hastings isn’t actually in that many of the Poirot stories (the t.v. adaptation expanded and improved him greatly), and Christie’s other detectives don’t tend to have the same inept sidekick with them. Miss Marple tends to have a clever but inexperienced person to do the energetic bits for her, for example. Not to say there aren’t some real clunkers (Trial by Innocence is really, really bad), but Styles is in many ways an aberration (and also her first!).
Mm, I don’t remember the Miss Marple books well enough, though I did read all or most of those. I’m just fundamentally not very excited about Poirot, unfortunately.