The Mysterious Affair at Styles
1920
- fiction
- mystery
- crime fiction
- mystery thriller
- thriller
- adult
- classic literature
- british literature
- hercule poirot (fictitious character)
- tommy beresford (fictitious character)
The story
Set in the summer of 1917 in an Essex country estate, the story follows the war-wounded Captain Arthur Hastings to the Styles St. Mary manor of his friend John Cavendish. The Cavendish household is wrought with tension due to the marriage of John's widowed old aunt Emily, she of a sizeable fortune, to a suspicious younger man, Alfred Inglethorp, twenty years her junior. Emily's two stepsons, John and Lawrence Cavendish, as well as John's wife Mary and several other people, also live at Styles. Late one night, the residents of Styles wake to find Emily Inglethorp dying. When Emily's sudden heart attack is found to be attributable to strychnine, Hastings, who had runs into his old friend, the Belgian Hercule Poirot, he recruits him to aid in the local investigation. With impeccable timing, Hercule Poirot, the insightful retired detective, makes his dramatic entrance to solve a most baffling case. Who poisoned the wealthy Emily Inglethorpe, and how did the murderer penetrate and escape from her locked bedroom? Suspects 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. On the day she was killed, Emily Inglethorp was overheard arguing with someone, most likely her husband, Alfred, or her stepson, John. Afterwards, she seemed quite distressed and, apparently, made a new will--which no one can find. Nobody can explain how or when the strychnine was administered to Mrs. Inglethorp. High on Poirot's list of suspects are: John Cavendish, the elder stepson; Mary Cavendish, his wife; Lawrence Cavendish, the younger stepson; Evelyn Howard, Mrs. Inglethorpe's companion; Cynthia Murdoch, her protegee; and Dr. Bauerstein, a mysterious stranger who lives in Essex. All have motive and opportunity but only Poirot can discover the truth.
What it’s like
Crisp, genteel prose in a wry first-person voice, with the English countryside of 1917 pressed close around it: heavy summer heat over a country-house garden, lamplit dining rooms, creaking staircases and whispered accusations behind closed doors. The tone is dry, observant and faintly comic, the narrator's war-weariness softening every social scene, while mannered dialogue carries a constant undertow of suspicion. Its brisk, tidy chapters each hold a small scene of interrogation, tea-table talk or a quiet search of rooms, which makes it easy to read in short sittings. The sensory world is domestic rather than lush: polished furniture, rain on tall windows, the clink of cups, cut grass drifting through an open door. Violence stays mostly off the page. A sudden death in the night and a poisoning described in clinical detail carry the darkness, but there is no gore and little physical threat. The emotional register is cosy-puzzling and mildly melancholy, with a light touch on the wounds of war. It suits a rainy Sunday, a comfort reread, or an evening wanting a clever puzzle with gentle stakes, and it is for readers who love golden-age whodunits, fair-play clues and a fussy, witty detective who enjoys being underestimated.
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