November’s Book Choice
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie’s first novel “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” was published in 1920 and introduced a new literary character in the form of Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective who became the central figure in more than 30 of her novels.
The unfolding story line is narrated by Captain Hastings, a guest of Emily Inglethorp, the owner of Styles. Hastings has pretentions of becoming a detective and solicits the help of his friend Poirot to resolve the mystery of the subsequent death of the owner. The book is thoroughly enjoyable with the introduction of several intriguing characters, a page turning plot with numerous clues and red herrings which kept the reading group guessing as to the murderer until the final denouement.
The prose is relatively naive with one or two unexplained clues emerging and all agreed that in our imaginations we continually saw Poirot as portrayed by the television actor David Suchet However this did not deter from our enjoyment of an easy and relaxing novel which was awarded an overall mark of 7.5 out of 10.
