The Mysterious Affair at Styles the Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hardcover) details from bookadda

From the Publisher

There has been a murder at Styles Court. Detective Poirot comes out of retirement to solve who would want the rich heiress Inglethorp dead, and would have the impudence to poison her. The jagged plot turns keep Poirot and the reader guessing as suspicion shifts from one peculiar character to the next.In Agatha Christie s first published work, the reader meets Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, destined to become the central detective of her mystery novels. If you like this book, you might also enjoy Mary Rinehart s mystery The Amazing Interlude.

Features -

The Mysterious Affair At Styles

Table of Contents Reading Group Guide Read an Excerpt Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Reading Group Guide

Who poisoned the wealthy Emily Inglethorpe, and how did the murderer penetrate and escape from her locked bedroom? Sus-pects abound in the quaint village of Styles St. Mary—from the heiress's fawning new husband to her two stepsons, her volatile housekeeper, and a pretty nurse who works in a hospital dispensary. Making his unforgettable debut, the brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is on the case. "The key to the success of this style of detective novel," writes Elizabeth George in her Introduction, "lies in how the author deals with both the clues and the red herrings, and it has to be said that no one bettered Agatha Christie at this game."

1. According to Agatha Christie, when she wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles she saw it as "a story with a moral; in fact it was the old Everyman Morality Tale, the hunting down of Evil and the triumph of Good. At that time, the time of the 1914 war . . . we had not then begun to wallow in psychology." How is this re-ected in the characters who populate the novel? Did you find them realistic, or did you think they were stereotypical? Did you identify with any of them, and if so, who?

2. When Hastings describes his reaction to the bucolic village of Styles St. Mary he observes, "It seemed almost impossible to believe that, not so very far away, a great war was running its appointed course. I felt I had suddenly strayed into another world." What other references to World War I can you recall from the novel?

3. How would you describe the Edwardian social hierarchy that Christie establishes in the novel? Who is on the top of the ladder, and who is on the bottom? Does anyone break the rules of this well-defined socialorder?

4. What role do outsiders play in The Mysterious Affair at Styles? Consider, in particular, the characters of Alfred Inglethorp, Dr. Bauerstein, and Hercule Poirot.

5. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, a red herring is "a hint or statement in the early part of the story to put the reader on the wrong scent" (derived from the practice of dragging a smelly red herring across a path to confuse hunting dogs). How many red herrings can you find in this mystery?

6. Captain Hastings admits to Mary Cavendish that he has always harbored a secret desire to become a detective in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes. Compare Poirot and Hastings to Holmes and Watson. What do these two detective teams have in common? How do they differ?

7. According to the critic Anthony Lejeune, "The real secret of Agatha Christie . . . lies not in the carpentering of her plots, excellent though that is, but in . . . [her] ability to buttonhole a reader, to make, as Raymond Chandler put it, 'each page throw the hook for the next.' " How does Christie build suspense in this novel? Were you surprised when the true murderer was revealed?

8. Hercule Poirot, the five-foot-four, egg-headed, brilliant Belgian detective who made his first appearance in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, is the hero of more than thirty novels and fifty short stories by Agatha Christie. What makes him such an appealing and enduring character?

9. How do Agatha Christie's novels compare with the works of today's mystery writers, such as Elizabeth George, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich, and Anne Perry?

Read an Excerpt

Chapter II Go to StylesThe intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as "The Styles Case" has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will eVectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.I will therefore brieXy set down the circumstances which led to my being connected with the aVair.I had been invalided home from the Front; and, after spending some months in a rather depressing Convalescent Home, was given a month's sick leave. Having no near relations or friends, I was trying to make up my mind what to do, when I ran across John Cavendish. I had seen very little of him for some years. Indeed, I had never known him particularly well. He was a good Wfteen years my senior, for one thing, though he hardly looked his forty-Wve years. As a boy, though, I had often stayed at Styles, his mother's place in Essex.We had a good yarn about old times, and it ended in his inviting me down to Styles to spend my leave there."The mater will be delighted to see you again?after all those years," he added."Your mother keeps well?" I asked."Oh, yes. I suppose you know that she has married again?"I am afraid I showed my surprise rather plainly. Mrs. Cavendish, who had married John's father when he was a widower with two sons, had been a handsome woman of middle-age as I remembered her. She certainly could not be a day less than seventy now. I recalled her as an energetic,autocratic personality, somewhat inclined to charitable and social notoriety, with a fondness for opening bazaars and playing the Lady Bountiful. She was a most generous woman, and possessed a considerable fortune of her own.Their country-place, Styles Court, had been purchased by Mr. Cavendish early in their married life. He had been completely under his wife's ascendancy, so much so that, on dying, he left the place to her for her lifetime, as well as the larger part of his income; an arrangement that was distinctly unfai