A review by lisas_library_factory
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

4.0

After reading many Poirot mysteries, it was a great experience to go back to the beginning of the famous Belgian detective.

Already in this very first novel by the later "Queen of Crime", Christie shows her remarkable talent of creating characters and settings and thread them together into a thrilling murdery mystery.

It was an absolute delight to detect all the aspects of Poirot, which make him unique in his own way and would become typical character traits in the later novels. Furthermore, we get to know the relationship between him and Hastings and are left with sort of a cliffhanger that indicates that they will be reunited for another case.

Furthermore, the female characters, which I have come to love in Christie's novels, were already existent in this early work of hers, which made the book even more readable.
All the characters were created with such detail, that they fitted perfectly into the story, without giving any reveal about who the murderer is.

The storyline with an English country house, a family tragedy and a seemingly complicated case is also striking. In this book, Christie (still) adheres to the rules of the detective novel by revealing to the reader all the clues that Poirot also discovers, thus giving them the opportunity to solve the mystery themselves.

I give this novel a single deduction because it took me a while for the story to pick up speed. I therefore rate "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" with 4/5 stars.