Set in Essex in the English countryside, The Mysterious Affair at Styles is one of the great classic murder mysteries. The victim, Mrs. Emily Inglethorp, is the wealthy mistress of Styles Court. After an evening of entertaining family and guests, she is found poisoned in her locked bedroom. The long list of suspects includes her gold-digging new husband, her stepsons, her best female friend, and a visiting doctor. As luck would have it, a brilliant, if rather eccentric, detective is among the company at Styles. In this, her first published mystery, Agatha Christie introduces her beloved Belgian inspector Hercule Poirot, who methodically pieces together the intricate evidence of this bewildering crime. From his very first appearance, Poirot amuses audiences with his oddly fastidious habits–then astonishes them with the power of his razor-sharp mind. Christie keeps listeners guessing as to the murderer’s identity until Poirot finally presents his ingenious solution to this landmark mystery.

About the author

Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie began writing during the First World War and wrote over 100 novels, plays and short story collections. She was still writing to great acclaim until her death, and her books have now sold over a billion copies in English and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. Yet Agatha Christie was always a very private person, and though Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple became household names, the Queen of Crime was a complete enigma to all but her closest friends.