“The Mysterious Affair at Styles” by Agatha Christie – The Birth of a Legacy

Those of you who know of Agatha Christie are probably acquainted with some of her more famous novels, such as And Then There Were None, formerly known as Ten Little Indians (with the original title using language considered racist by today’s standards), Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express.

However, Agatha Christie had already started making giant waves in the world of literature with her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

Before giving you a brief idea of what it’s about, I’d like to note that this novel was written back in 1916 and published in 1920. I believe I’ve said it once before, while the mystery may seem clichéd, this is actually where the cliché was born. And rest assured, it’s arguably done better than in most stories which came after, setting the blueprint and raising the bar for murder mystery novels.

In any case, the events take place during the First World War, mainly at the Styles Court, a manor is Essex country. The story begins as Emily Cavendish inherits Styles as a life estate upon the death of her husband.

Soon after, she re-marries and changes her name to Emily Inglethorp, and starts a new and peaceful life along with her step-sons, John and Lawrence, and her new husband, Alfred, as well as several other people living at the manor, seemingly indefinitely.

Should Emily Inglethorp die, Styles will be passed on to John Cavendish, her step-son. One night, the body of Emily Inglethorp is found in the manor, with her death being everything but an accident: it is determined that she was poisoned with strychnine, with her room being locked from the inside… with the killer having apparently disappeared into thin air.

One of the house guests is Lieutenant Hastings, and seeking help in solving this murder, he turns to a certain Hercule Poirot who lives not far from there. From there on out, the Belgian detective steals the spotlight, acting methodically to build logical chains from the few clues he comes across, slowly but surely unraveling the macabre plot behind Emily’s murder.

One of the characteristics which set this novel apart from most, if not all the other works of Agatha Christie’s time, is how the clues are presented to us, the readers, and how we are encouraged to solve the case along with our Belgian friend.

Naturally, you are given the exact same knowledge as Poirot, perhaps even a bit more; this isn’t one of those novels where absolutely new facts come to light five pages before the end. As a matter of fact, if I’m not mistaken, this was so far removed from Christie’s style that she even had Poirot complain about it in one of her other novels.

As for the mystery itself, regardless of how clichéd and obvious it may seem to you, I guarantee you’ll be surprised at not only the complexity of the crime, but also as to how masterfully each chain link has been crafted. It’s like seeing order being slowly brought to a big pile of chaos.

As in practically all other Agatha Christie novels, you don’t get to learn a whole lot about other characters, but you do get enough backstory and development to at least make you pay attention and remember them, and in some cases, even care.

All in all, The Mysterious Affair at Styles has aged incredibly well, remaining an enthralling and intellectually-geared mystery any fan of the genre can appreciate.

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Agatha Christie (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) Personal site Agatha Christie is thought of by many as being the grandmother of murder mysteries. Throughout her novels, which include the classics And Then There Were None and Death on the Nile, Christie developed many groundbreaking techniques for her time, most of which are being used in one way or another by modern murder mystery writers.