The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Happy New Year, everyone! I am starting the year off strong with a few new reviews and with a new fervor for reading. Last year showed me how little I actually read, even though I could throw in excuses of how much I work and have other things going on. It is the priority you place on it.

So jumping right in.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles was another audiobook that I listened to toward the end of the year through the podcast Phoebe Reads a Mystery. She did not provide a description of the book like where it fell in with Agatha Christie’s books involving Hercule Poirot, so I never knew it was the first in the series. That is really funny, considering that as I was listening, I was thinking that Affair at Styles was one of the last books. Poirot is called on to join a friend at his friend’s family estate in the city, where the matriarch is found dead. The whole time, the narrator, the friend who invites Poirot, is continually underestimating him and questioning his deducing abilities, at least until the very end, when things come together and Poirot owns everyone. The way that Christie starts off this series by not having it begin at Poirot’s first mystery is, I feel, important and something different. Yes, you see that with almost every mystery detective, that from the first book it is not their first rodeo, but considering that this was published in 1920 and, at least in my reading experience, the earliest mystery of this kind, you feel at ease that at least the detective knows what he is doing. Here is the flip of the coin: Christie sets characters against Poirot with the thinking that he is too old. That is refreshing; usually in most cases you have the background characters be against someone for their youth, not for their seniority. Reminds me of an anime, Inuyashiki, which has a more cruel way of showing a similar situation, but it shows a much older person be the underdog hero. As a note, the anime is incredibly violent and dark, so it is not for the faint at heart. The series was found recently on Youtube.

I liked the formula that Christie has for Poirot is something original and even laughable. The only other experience I had of Poirot is seeing The Orient Express, which I enjoyed a good amount. Overall, Poirot reminds me of an exhausted adult among children doing all the talking and arguing over who is right, meanwhile he has the correct answer. Everyone around him jumps so quickly to thinking that they have the answer as he takes his time to explore all options and find the most logical.

I enjoyed listening to Affair at Styles. I am realizing that I can listen to audiobooks, but I cannot read and listen at the same time, ha-ha. I was able to focus on the story and follow along so much easier just listening. There are a lot of books that I do not own that Phoebe reads, so I will definitely be keeping Phoebe Reads a Mystery around. I listen through Spotify, in case you wanted to find it. Meanwhile, you can find The Mysterious Affair at Styles here.

9/10