The famous English writer Agatha Christie introduces the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot to the reader in The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920. The mystery begins with the death of Emily Inglethorp at Styles. Poirot, a Belgian refugee of the Great War, is settling in England near the home of Emily Inglethorp, who helped him to his new life. His friend Hastings arrives as a guest at her home when the woman is killed. Suspects are plentiful, including the victim’s husband, her stepsons, her companion, a nurse and a specialist on poisons. All of them have secrets they are desperate to keep, but none can outwit Poirot as he navigates the ingenious red herrings and plot twists that earned Agatha Christie her well-deserved reputation as the queen of mystery.
About the Author:
Agatha Christie, in full Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, née Miller, (born 15th September 1890, Torquay, Devon, England – died 12th January 1976, Wallingford, Oxfordshire), English detective novelist and playwright whose books have sold more than 100 million copies and have been translated into some 100 languages.
Educated at home by her mother, Christie began writing detective fiction while working as a nurse during World War I. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), introduced Hercule Poirot, her eccentric and egotistic Belgian detective; Poirot reappeared in about 25 novels and many short stories before returning to Styles, where, in Curtain (1975), he died. The elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple, her other principal detective figure, first appeared in Murder at the Vicarage (1930). Christie’s first major recognition came with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), which was followed by some 75 novels that usually made best-seller lists and were serialized in popular magazines in England and the United States.
Christie’s plays include The Mousetrap (1952), which set a world record for the longest continuous run at one theatre (8, 862 performances – more than 21 years – at the Ambassadors Theatre, London) and then moved to another theatre, and Witness for the Prosecution, which, like many of her works, was adapted into a successful film. Other notable film adaptations include Murder on the Orient Express (1933; film 1974 and 2017) and Death on the Nile (1937; film 1978). Her works were also adapted for television.
In 1926 Christie’s mother died, and her husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, requested a divorce. In a move she never fully explained, Christie disappeared and, after several highly publicized days, was discovered registered in a hotel under the name of the woman her husband wished to marry. In 1930 Christie married the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan; thereafter she spent several months each year on expeditions in Iraq and Syria with him. She also wrote romantic nondetective novels, such as Absent in the Spring (1944), under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.
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