The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (1921)
Given the 2021 centenary of Christie's first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, I decided I'd start a read of all the Poirot books she wrote. Styles was Poirot's debut, an unfortunate one as it happened since Christie made him an elderly retiree. She didn't expect to still be writing about the character 50 years later, by which time he'd be around 120 if you estimate his age in Styles to be 70 or so. (She'd go on to make the same mistake ten years later with the debut of Miss Marple, an elderly spinster.) 
This makes Styles a slight anomaly among her works in one way, as unlike later novels it's attached to a specific era: post-World War I. The two world wars are present in the Poirot novels written during them, as presumably they couldn't be avoided, even if logically this would suggest that Poirot was in his early 90s by the time Germany invaded Poland. Oblique references to the changing culture are present all throughout Christie but rarely do we get dates and global events to tie them to a period.As this is her first novel, Christie hasn't yet developed her particular style, though its seeds are prominent. The narrative formula is very traditional here, borrowing its opening from the first Sherlock Holmes novel (A Study in Scarlet), with Christie's Dr Watson figure, Captain Hastings, invalided home from war (with Watson it was the Afghan War). The story takes us to Styles, a country estate in rural Essex, where an elderly matriarch is poisoned with strychnine and suspicion falls on her young husband. However, a guest at the estate has warned Hastings that the rest of the household, including the dead woman's stepsons and a girl to whom she's given her patronage, have their eyes on her will.Something else that marks this novel out from those which followed it is the grisliness of the murder. Christie avoided graphic details in her murders to a point where it was sometimes funny, a la Cards on the Table, where an Egyptian blackmailer is stabbed with a stiletto. With neither blood nor any sign whatever besides the tip of its handle, which is at first mistaken for a shirt button. With her first outing, however, Christie was clearly at pains to depict the nature and effects of strychnine accurately. (Of the reviews she received, she was said to be most pleased with one by a pharmaceutical magazine, praising her knowledge of poison.) Therefore, you get to see the murder actually happening, as the poisoned woman's body arches and mouth froths.A modern reader might find the novel somewhat light on mood and action. Christie had a lightness of touch in her stories which probably helped them become so popular. Where another writer might spend a page describing a room, Christie reduces the scene to its pertinent details and sketches the characters with simple, astute observations.The only awkward element is in Hastings’ narration. When he first meets Mary Cavendish, wife of his best friend John (at whose invitation Hastings has come to Styles), he fawns over her in a manner suggesting eventual romance. Later he proposes marriage to another character, Cynthia (the girl patronised by the dead woman), in a whimsical moment inspired by his gentlemanly sorrow at her sad situation.These interludes are a little of the Harlequin romance/Mills&Boon school, and in the case of Mary Cavendish, the subplot goes nowhere. If I was to guess I’d say that this is another of Christie’s tricks. By suggesting a romance between Hastings and Mary, she leads us to expect that either something will happen to John so that the lovers can elope without her marriage being a problem, or that something will happen to Mary and our poor hero is doomed to heartbreak.Clever if so, but even then the thread needed to be tied at the end (perhaps with either Hastings remarking wistfully that Mary just wasn’t for him, or the two ending up together after all). As it is it’s just left hanging. And as for the proposal to Cynthia, it has the unfortunate effect of making Hastings seem rather more pathetic than gallant. Still, minor points.My Kindle version comes with a preface by Christie herself, on the subject of poisons in detective stories. There's also an excellent introduction by Dr John Curran, an expert on Christie and Golden Age crime fiction, as well as a chance to read the original denouement alongside the published version. In Christie's original manuscript the denouement took place in a courtroom, with Poirot in the witness box giving evidence. Feeling that this was drab, her publishers suggested moving it to a drawing-room and thereby created a trope which Christie is credited with originating.The original and published endings aren't all that different pictorially, given that they're largely dialogue, which is for the most part identical in both versions. Christie doesn't describe either the courtroom or drawing room, since they're not places with clues in them. What makes the published version superior is the intimacy of the smaller space admitting only essential characters.It makes dramatic sense to gather only the essential characters for the final showdown. The drawing room also allows for something else that's become a trope: the killer's last desperate act (be it attacking the detective or attempting suicide), wonderfully parodied by That Mitchell and Webb Look (you can find the sketch by Googling "Mitchell and Webb Poirot" - it's the first video).So pick this one up if you like Christie but haven't read it. It includes such things as drawings of the house, elements which she'd abandon after this debut. By the time The Murder on the Links, the second Poirot novel, was realised, the Belgian sleuth was pronouncing that physical evidence was secondary to his more psychological and sedentary methods.
This makes Styles a slight anomaly among her works in one way, as unlike later novels it's attached to a specific era: post-World War I. The two world wars are present in the Poirot novels written during them, as presumably they couldn't be avoided, even if logically this would suggest that Poirot was in his early 90s by the time Germany invaded Poland. Oblique references to the changing culture are present all throughout Christie but rarely do we get dates and global events to tie them to a period.As this is her first novel, Christie hasn't yet developed her particular style, though its seeds are prominent. The narrative formula is very traditional here, borrowing its opening from the first Sherlock Holmes novel (A Study in Scarlet), with Christie's Dr Watson figure, Captain Hastings, invalided home from war (with Watson it was the Afghan War). The story takes us to Styles, a country estate in rural Essex, where an elderly matriarch is poisoned with strychnine and suspicion falls on her young husband. However, a guest at the estate has warned Hastings that the rest of the household, including the dead woman's stepsons and a girl to whom she's given her patronage, have their eyes on her will.Something else that marks this novel out from those which followed it is the grisliness of the murder. Christie avoided graphic details in her murders to a point where it was sometimes funny, a la Cards on the Table, where an Egyptian blackmailer is stabbed with a stiletto. With neither blood nor any sign whatever besides the tip of its handle, which is at first mistaken for a shirt button. With her first outing, however, Christie was clearly at pains to depict the nature and effects of strychnine accurately. (Of the reviews she received, she was said to be most pleased with one by a pharmaceutical magazine, praising her knowledge of poison.) Therefore, you get to see the murder actually happening, as the poisoned woman's body arches and mouth froths.A modern reader might find the novel somewhat light on mood and action. Christie had a lightness of touch in her stories which probably helped them become so popular. Where another writer might spend a page describing a room, Christie reduces the scene to its pertinent details and sketches the characters with simple, astute observations.The only awkward element is in Hastings’ narration. When he first meets Mary Cavendish, wife of his best friend John (at whose invitation Hastings has come to Styles), he fawns over her in a manner suggesting eventual romance. Later he proposes marriage to another character, Cynthia (the girl patronised by the dead woman), in a whimsical moment inspired by his gentlemanly sorrow at her sad situation.These interludes are a little of the Harlequin romance/Mills&Boon school, and in the case of Mary Cavendish, the subplot goes nowhere. If I was to guess I’d say that this is another of Christie’s tricks. By suggesting a romance between Hastings and Mary, she leads us to expect that either something will happen to John so that the lovers can elope without her marriage being a problem, or that something will happen to Mary and our poor hero is doomed to heartbreak.Clever if so, but even then the thread needed to be tied at the end (perhaps with either Hastings remarking wistfully that Mary just wasn’t for him, or the two ending up together after all). As it is it’s just left hanging. And as for the proposal to Cynthia, it has the unfortunate effect of making Hastings seem rather more pathetic than gallant. Still, minor points.My Kindle version comes with a preface by Christie herself, on the subject of poisons in detective stories. There's also an excellent introduction by Dr John Curran, an expert on Christie and Golden Age crime fiction, as well as a chance to read the original denouement alongside the published version. In Christie's original manuscript the denouement took place in a courtroom, with Poirot in the witness box giving evidence. Feeling that this was drab, her publishers suggested moving it to a drawing-room and thereby created a trope which Christie is credited with originating.The original and published endings aren't all that different pictorially, given that they're largely dialogue, which is for the most part identical in both versions. Christie doesn't describe either the courtroom or drawing room, since they're not places with clues in them. What makes the published version superior is the intimacy of the smaller space admitting only essential characters.It makes dramatic sense to gather only the essential characters for the final showdown. The drawing room also allows for something else that's become a trope: the killer's last desperate act (be it attacking the detective or attempting suicide), wonderfully parodied by That Mitchell and Webb Look (you can find the sketch by Googling "Mitchell and Webb Poirot" - it's the first video).So pick this one up if you like Christie but haven't read it. It includes such things as drawings of the house, elements which she'd abandon after this debut. By the time The Murder on the Links, the second Poirot novel, was realised, the Belgian sleuth was pronouncing that physical evidence was secondary to his more psychological and sedentary methods.
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