The Mysterious Affair at Styles, episode 1!
Welcome to the Tea, Tonic & Toxin book club and podcast! We’re reading and discussing the best mysteries and detective stories ever written.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) is the first Hercule Poirot mystery! From the Times Literary Supplement (1921): The story is “said to be 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.”
Can Hercule Poirot solve a seemingly unsolvable murder? Can you?
Read: Buy it used, read it for free, or get it on Amazon. (Reading time: ~4 hours)
Reflect: Check out the conversation starters below.
Weigh In: Share your thoughts using the form below!
We're excited to have Jill Carstens as a guest to discuss Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles! Jill is a journalist and an author of narrative nonfiction, and she was also a teacher for 30 years. These days, Jill is concentrating on memoir writing and painting. As she likes to say, "art and words can make a difference." An avid outdoor enthusiast, she has homes in both Denver and Salida, Colorado, where she, her husband, and her son spend as much time outside as possible.
You can find Jill on Instagram @lettersfrommissjill & @graphittirainbow
Welcome Jill!
Here are some questions about the first Hercule Poirot mystery to get you started. Read, reflect, weigh in above, and listen to the podcast!
Period and Setting: The first Hercule Poirot mystery is set during the Great War. We learn that Hastings was injured in the Great War. Mrs. Inglethorp runs dozens (hundreds?) of charitable societies, many of them war related, and she recites a war poem at an evening bazaar. Cynthia works in a dispensary at a Red Cross Hospital. Belgian refugees are in the area, including Poirot. War economies dictate that scrap paper is saved and sent away in sacks for recycling. In the second half of the book, Hastings takes a job at the War Office.
When Hastings first arrives at Styles Court, he writes, “As one looked out over the flat Essex country, lying so green and peaceful under the afternoon sun, it seemed almost impossible to believe that, not so very far away, a great war was running its appointed course. I felt I had suddenly strayed into another world.”
Hastings later notes, “The war was momentarily inactive, and the newspapers seized with avidity on this crime in fashionable life: ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ was the topic of the moment.”
What do you find intriguing, surprising, or unsettling about the period in which the book is set and the book’s Styles Court setting?
Poe’s Narrator vs. Watson vs. Hastings: In what ways do these narrators differ? In what ways are they variations on a theme?
And start with Hastings’ lack of self-awareness. He notes, “I flatter myself that my first judgments are usually fairly shrewd.” He also notes, “The idea crossed my mind … that poor old Poirot was growing old. Privately I thought it lucky that he had associated with him someone of a more receptive type of mind.” And at one point he says, “My system is based on [Poirot’s]—though of course I have progressed rather further.”
And Hastings’ reason for writing: “[In] view of the world-wide notoriety which attended [the case], I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumors which still persist.”
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Stay mysterious...
