The Classic Crime Collection

NEW ADDITION!

Agatha Christie’s first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, is now available to borrow from the Classic Crime Collection.
The novel introduces the reader to three of Christie’s most-loved characters:

• Captain Hastings, injured in the First World War and recuperating at the country home, Styles, of his old friend John Cavendish;
• Hercule Poirot, the Belgian refugee temporarily living in Styles St Mary due to the kindness of John’s stepmother, Emily Inglethorp;
• Detective Inspector James Japp of Scotland Yard, who first met Poirot when they worked together on a case in Brussels in 1904, and is now charged with finding the murderer.

Agatha Christie began the story in 1916 but it was not published until 1920. Drawing on her work as a volunteer nurse with Belgian soldiers and later with Belgian refugees in Torquay, it is a clever tale of murder set in a country house occupied by various individuals – the Inglethorp family, servants, lady companion, doctor, friend of the family – who all seem to have something to hide. The story was well-received and achieved substantial sales for the novice writer.

The reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement of 3 February 1921 stated:

It is said to be the author’s first book and the result of a bet about the possibility of writing a detective story in which the reader would not be able to spot the criminal. Every reader must admit that the bet was won.

Did you know?

• Agatha Christie later called her house ‘Styles’;
• The final Poirot novel, Curtain (1975), returns to Styles for its setting;
• The author earned only £25 for her story – no-one knows how much her publisher, John Lane, made!

 Elaine Henderson