A hot summer morning getting the PT Cruiser’s air conditioning repaired – so to keep myself from stressing too much about the upcoming prognosis, I sat in the shop revisiting a classic whodunnit. Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1921) is a genre milestone for two reasons: it’s the mystery grand dame's first novel — and the debut of her first established character, Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. As such, it’s a big moment in the history of old-fashioned detective fiction.
It'd been decades since I first read this cozy little puzzle, so I had scant memory of its story. As a mystery, Styles doesn’t measure up to peak Dame Agatha, though it has its considerable charms. Narrated by Captain Arthur Hastings — a Watson who managed to be so consistently wrongheaded that he makes Sherlock Holmes’ foil look like a master of deductive reasoning — the book centers on a murder at an Essex country place peopled with a large cast of likely suspects. When wealthy philanthropist Emily Inglethorpe is poisoned, the first one suspected is her unpleasant newish husband, Alfred. Over the course of this compact mystery, though, nearly everybody in Styles Court — not one, but two stepsons; servants; foreign looking doctor, et al — gets accused, only to have each accusation overturned by the man with the “little grey cells.”
Poirot conveniently comes into the picture after Hastings, who describes his own ambitions to some day become a detective, happens upon the famous sleuth at the village post office. When murder most foul is perpetrated, Poirot gets called in on Hasting’s recommendation, even though our narrator can't help wondering if the elderly detective is as acute as he used to be. Of the all the great classic sleuths, the refugee Belgian is arguably the most lightheartedly portrayed: an egg-headed (we’re told his pate is shaped like one) egotist prone to preening and baiting the unquestionably dim Hastings. To be fair, Poirot’s mistreatment of our narrator is largely justified — at one point in the story, Hastings doesn’t give the detective information necessary to solve the case.
Article comments
1 - Organfreak
Nice review. I relate, in that this is the first Christie book I read, probably 50 years ago. I'll revisit it, too. One little thing, since you yourself said "arguably"...You said:
"Of the all the great classic sleuths, the refugee Belgian is arguably the most lightheartedly portrayed: an egg-headed (we're told his pate is shaped like one) egotist prone to preening and baiting the unquestionably dim Hastings."
IMHO, by far THE most comic portrayal of a Great Detective is none other than Nero Wolfe, the hugely-fat, mysoginist, gourmand, orchid-growing crank as portrayed by Rex Stout. If you haven't read one of these, do-- you'll be hooked and there are maybe 80 books. And his sidekick Archie is far from stupid; instead he's much more worldly than Wolfe, and very clever, but alas, not a genius like his boss. Hilarity ensues....
2 - Bill Sherman
I love Stout's detective (would probably pronounce The Doorbell Rang as Nero and Archie at their best). But I think I would still give the edge to Hercule, who is a bit more affectionately portrayed (at least in the early books) even if Dame Agatha reportedly grew tired of her own character over the years . . .