What is a Classics Club Spin?
Create a post that lists twenty “classic” books of your choice that you want to read. This is your Classics Club Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period. On the stated date, The Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the stated date. It’s usually a 4–6 week period of time. You may like to stack your list with books that you know are do-able for you within that time frame. See the full description at The Classics Club.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Story
This Christie’s first mystery novel as well as the first Hercule Poirot book. “Filled with suspenseful plot twists and viable suspects ranging from the victim’s much younger husband, to her resentful step-sons, one ultimate question remains: Who killed Emily Inglethorp?” (Amazon).
Was she poisoned? Was her husband the murderer? Was there a new will? Was there double-jeopardy?
If you have a good copy of t his book (I had the cheap kindle versions so ….) there is a map of the house, a detail of the crime scene and a fragment of a document included for extra fun. (You get what you pay for when you go super-cheap–no fun).
My Thoughts
I almost didn’t include this book on my Spin List. Sadly, I wished I had gone with that impulse. Having endured the new movie of Death on the Nile, read Midwinter Murder to start the year, and having read both Murder in Mesopotamia (for the 1936 Club Spin) and Absent in Spring (written as Mary Westmacott) last year, I am about Christie-d out. I am gamely trying to read all of her books, but at a speed of about one or two per year. The movie pushed me over the edge I think.
Nonetheless, she isn’t called the Queen of Mystery for nothing! This was a “locked room” mystery (I got a chuckle when the man Poirot is reviewing evidence suggested that the woman’s husband had to have killed her because naturally she would open the door to her husband! “Not tonight, darling, I fear I cannot receive you–I have a headache” must never have occurred to the man).
Naturally it is a great who-done-it and another time I would have enjoyed it more. Regardless, duty is done and I can cross it off my list and report that I read my Spin book! Next spin–no Agathas on the list though.
My Verdict
3.5
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Hopewell's Public Library of Life 
I know I’ve read this but can’t remember much about it beyond the fact there is a locked room death and Hercule Poirot attracts a lot of attention locally because he’s a “foreigner”. Christie is always readable but I seldom remember the plots
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You got it!
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Well, this is on my spin list, but… maybe I’ll enjoy it more than you did.
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It’s ridiculous, but I’ve yet to read an Agatha Christie. I don’t think I’ll choose this one if your rating is just three and a half.
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It’s hard to be enthusiastic when she’s such a part of culture now. We “know” Agatha’s brand, right? I liked the 70s Murder on the Orient Express Movie. The new ones take too many liberties with sex and language. I’m not really a TOTAL fuddy-duddy, but keep it in tune with the time of the story. It’s not that people of certain classes didn’t sleep around or whatever–they just didn’t “do it in the street and frighten the horses”–i.e. the were more careful. I like that.
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I try to read a couple of Agatha Christie mysteries every year, but I haven’t managed to read any this year. I’ll have to work on that. 🙂
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That’s typically my rate of reading them, too.
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