“The Mysterious Affairs at Styles” by Agatha Christie

When reading “The Mystery of the Blue Train”, I learned that Agatha Christie’s, and Hercule Poirot’s, very first debut novel was “The Mysterious Affairs at Styles”, so naturally, I cracked open the book to see more of the introduction of the great detective. I must say, Ms. Christie definitely opened it with a bang. Right away, smack dab in the middle: A murder in a closed, locked room. Fans’ favorite. I love how this type of case was the starting point for Agatha Christie, as she then proved to be one of the experts, if not the expert, on closed-room murders. That said, considering this novel was her debut, things were still quite… a lot. So many elements moving and going; Lawrence Cavendish stood over with such horror on his face, the matter(s) with cocoa and coffee, so much strychnine, fight fight fight, burned documents, missing keys, espionage, and l’amore. Not as bad as the Screaming Marmot meme, I did find myself going, “HMMMMMM?! HMMM???!!!” whenever I see Hastings simping…