The Mysterious Affair at Styles

This is where the legend starts. We meet Arthur Hastings, who is home from the war, and his old friend Hercule Poirot, a refugee from Belgium. The setting is a classic English manor house where the wealthy matriarch, Emily Inglethorp, is found dying of strychnine poisoning in a room locked from the inside. As Poirot tells the ever-confused Hastings:

"This affair must be dismantled, piece by piece, and each piece must be examined with the most meticulous care."

Now, let's look at this as a critic. Because Christie was working as a pharmacy assistant when she wrote this, the book is **obsessed with chemistry**. There is so much detail about strychnine, bromides, and precipitation that it can feel a bit like reading a science textbook in the middle chapters. If you aren't interested in the "how" of the poison, you might find some parts a bit dry.

Also, Poirot is much more "Sherlock-y" here than he is later. he crawls around on the floor looking at coffee stains and flowerbeds. It’s fun, but I prefer the later Poirot who solves everything just by sitting in a chair and thinking. However, for a first novel, the way she handles the red herrings is absolutely brilliant. She makes you suspect everyone at least twice.