You need this book by the Queen of Crime

Despite my deep enjoyment of Christie books, I have never paid much attention to the order in which they were written. They’re my favourite fluff, and I read them in whatever order strikes me. So I was both surprised and delighted to discover that The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first book by the woman who later became the Queen of Crime.

Plot Summary

Always hard to do these with mysteries, but here we go. Being the first book written by Christie, we here meet Captain Hastings and Hercule Poirot for the first time. They meet during WWI, when Hastings is back in England following an injury and Poirot has felt war-torn Belgium. When the wealthy lady of Styles house is found poisoned, it’s up to Hercule and Hastings to work out whodunnit.

The Queen of Crime does it again

I wrote earlier about the second book from this esteemed author. Interestingly, I found it paled in comparison to her later work. But it also wasn’t as good as The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Perhaps the fact that Christie had signed a dodgy book deal impacted those following few books. Either way, I was delighted to find Christie back on her form here.

Again, it’s a mystery so I won’t go into it too much. I think it was ingenious and enjoyable. Christie was inspired by her own experience as a pharmacist in hospitals during The Great War. My edition includes a letter she wrote while doing the same job in WWII. It’s interesting to read her thoughts on how the book came to be (a bet) and how her experience dispensing and dealing with medicines first interested her in the potential for poisonings.

Perhaps part of the appeal here is the groundbreaking nature of her work. The style of these books changed the way mysteries have been written ever since. It’s rather like J. R. R. Tolkien changing the face of fantasy writing forever. That’s exciting! How interesting, to read the book that started it all.

Grab a cup of tea (perhaps not cocoa or coffee…) and enjoy a delightful mystery.