An Introduction to The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie

Ask folks on the street to name a celebrated author of mysteries, most are likely to reply: Agatha Christie. Her reputation as the grand dame of mystery writing is established, and fascination with her many detective novels and short stories remains strong. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1916), Christie introduces the English-speaking world to Belgium detective Hercule Poirot. The Mysterious Affair at Styles is classified as a “locked room” mystery–a mystery in which one or more people is murdered under impossible circumstances: there seems no way for the perpetrator to have entered or exited the scene of the crime. Only a preternaturally perceptive and analytical  detective like Poirot can solve such a mystery.