The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Peril at End House 
(1932)
Nick is an unusual name for a pretty young woman. And
Nick Buckley has been leading an unusual life of late. First,
on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car fail.
Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder misses her by inch-
es. Safe in bed, she is almost crushed by a painting. Upon
discovering a bullet hole in Nick’s sun hat, Hercule Poirot
(who had come to Cornwall for a simple holiday with his

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friend Captain Hastings) decides that the girl needs his pro-
tection. At the same time, he begins to unravel the mystery
of a murder that hasn’t been committed.Yet.
•
Times Literary Supplement
: ‘Ingenious.’
9.
Lord Edgware Dies 
(1933)
Poirot was present when the beautiful actress Jane Wilkinson
bragged of her plan to ‘get rid of ’ her estranged husband.
Now the monstrous man is dead. But how could Jane have
stabbed Lord Edgware in his library at exactly the time she
was dining with friends? And what could have been her
motive, since Edgware had finally granted her a divorce?
The great Belgian detective, aided by Captain Hastings,
can’t help feeling that some kind of heinous stagecraft is in
play. And does more murder wait in the wings?
•
The New York Times
: ‘A most ingenious crime puz-
zle.’
•
Times Literary Supplement
: ‘The whole case is a tri-
umph of Poirot’s special qualities.’
• Noted crime fiction critic Julian Symons selected
Lord Edgware Dies
as one of Agatha Christie’s best.
10.
Murder on the Orient Express
(1934)
Just after midnight, a snowstorm stops the Orient Express
dead in its tracks in the middle of Yugoslavia. The luxurious
train is surprisingly full for this time of year. But by morn-
ing there is one passenger less. A ‘respectable American gen-

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tleman’ lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times,
his door locked from the inside... Hercule Poirot is also
aboard, having arrived in the nick of time to claim a second-
class compartment — and the most astounding case of his
illustrious career.
Regarding chronology: Agatha Christie seems not much
concerned in the course of her books with their relationship
to each other. It is why the Marples and the Poirots may be
ready in any order, really, with pleasure. However, the dedi-
cated Poirotist may wish to note that the great detective is
returning from ‘A little affair in Syria’ at the start of 
Murder
on the Orient Express
. It is a piece of business after this ‘little
affair’ — the investigation into the death of an archaeologist’s
wife — that is the subject of 
Murder in Mesopotamia
(1936).
If one wishes to delay a tad longer the pleasures of 
Orient
Express
,
Murder in Mesopotamia
offers no better opportuni-
ty.
Fair warning:
Along these lines, it is advisable that one 
not
read
Cards on the Table
(1936) prior to 
Orient Express
, since
Poirot
himself
casually gives away the ending to the latter
novel.
Of note:
Murder on the Orient Express
is one of Agatha
Christie’s most famous novels, owing no doubt to a combi-
nation of its romantic setting and the ingeniousness of its
plot; its non-exploitative reference to the sensational kidnap-
ping and murder of the infant son of Charles and Anne
Morrow Lindbergh only two years prior; and a popular 1974

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film adaptation, starring Albert Finney as Poirot — one of
the few cinematic versions of a Christie work that met with
the approval, however mild, of the author herself.
• Dorothy L. Sayers,
Sunday Times
: ‘A murder mys-
tery conceived and carried out on the finest classi-
cal lines.’
•
Saturday Review of Literature
: ‘Hard to surpass.’
•
Times Literary Supplement
: ‘Need it be said — the
little grey cells solve once more the seemingly
insoluble. Mrs Christie makes an improbable tale
very real, and keeps her readers enthralled and
guessing to the end.’
11.