Recently, I read the book “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” by Agatha Christie. It’s the first novel of hers featuring Hercule Poirot, so I thought it might be worth it to review it as well. I found the story to be a typical Christie novel; in this one, a rich woman is killed, only three months after she marries Alfred Inglethorp, who is, according to John Cavendish, “a fortune hunter.” Naturally, Inglethorp is the reader’s primary suspect — and yet, Poirot says that there is too much evidence against him, that the trail was laid deliberately — and looks elsewhere for the criminal! While the twist on the criminal isn’t as great as that seen in some of her later stories, it’s still quite hard to guess who it might be, as Christie predisposes you to other possible murderers first, so that it’s almost impossible to guess who the killer is until Poirot explains. I enjoyed reading it, and the ending surprised me immensely. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in mystery novels that are almost unsolvable until the detective reveals the murderer and rate it 9.4/10.
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