Agatha Christie's Mysterious Affair At Styles

The heiress of Styles has been murdered, dying in agony from strychnine slipped into her coffee. And there are plenty who would gain from her death: the financially strapped stepson, the gold digging younger husband, and an embittered daughter-in-law.

Agatha Christie's eccentric and hugely popular detective, Hercule Poirot, was introduced to the world in this book, which launched her career as the most famous and best loved of all mystery writers.

The New York Times

Though this may be the first public book of Miss Agatha Christie, she betrays the cunning of an old hand. . . . You may safely make a wager with yourself that until you have heard M. Poirot's final word on the mysterious affair at Styles, you will be kept guessing at its full solution and will certainly never lay down this most entertaining book. -- Books of the Century; New York Times review, December 1920

Agatha Christie is nearly synonymous with upper-class British mysteries, for good reason. She set the standard for the genre in over 60 novels and dozens of short stories, also creating two classic detectives: the fastidious Belgian, Hercule Poirot, and English spinster Jane Marple. No one could match Christie's knack for weaving clues into her stories, then turning the whole thing inside out -- shocking her readers every time.