Appearance
Mysterious affair at styles
The first novel ever by the queen of mysteries is elegently done and contains a colorful and sort of exotic plot and characters, introducing her famous detective Poirot. But the story drags, only a bit, in the middle but the very end is fast paced and a sheer surprise. It may not be her best novel but this is a great one.
Mysterious affair at styles
i thought the plot was rellie good and this was one of the first Agatha Christie book i read!!! this one hooked me and now i've read almost all her novels!
Mysterious affair at styles
Christie's first published novel is clunky and over-worked, but it has two things going for it: it introduces Poriot and it clearly demonstrates Christie's talent for creating a complex plot with an unexpected resolution. In the years to come, Christie will write a great many better novels than STYLES, but it is a solid start to a brilliant career. Christie fans will enjoy the book; others, however, may find it dated and wordy.
Mysterious affair at styles
just not my cup of tea . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mysterious affair at styles
Agatha Christie weaves a most potent brew of murder, intrigues, clues everywhere, and Hercule. Poirot alone can produce a completed tapestry . The use of candles at the home of the landed gentry, the obvious class distinctions, the use of “spills" to ignite fires are representative ‘‘Christie"touches.
Mysterious affair at styles
Sampling the first couple of dozen reviews, I fail to see any of what is being listed here by Amazon, that is, the Audio Partners audio book unabridged reading of Christies, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by David Souchet, who has given us the most convincing Poirot in portraying the role for BBC and A&E; television. Since many summaries and evaluations of the written book have appeared, I will make no comment on the story save to echo the view that this is good Christie but only the beginning of the character she ultimately delineated more appealingly. Souchet's reading is excellent, of course, with adequate voice characterizations of the variety of different speaking roles in the text. Hastings, the narrator for the book, naturally, is the most defined. Souchet creates an appropriately young (he is supposed to be in his early twenties at this time) voice, naive, overconfident, assertive, bewildered, easily bruised, angry, humiliated, awed, puzzled, as he deals with the Old Man who often seems to him to be more of an early senile dementia case than the brilliant detective he had been. He manages this central voice quite well, as he does the men and women who make up the suspects and walk-ons customary in the Christie cast. Surprisingly, perhaps only because I was not reading the book, is what I see as a somewhat too flighty Poirot, not as weighty as in the TV productions (where he retains the Belgian excitability). At any rate, I found the voice less appealing than in the filmed versions.That is a minor point. Overall, there is a vivid portrait of the murder scene and the interactions comprising the plot to its denouement with the surprise solution offered to all the suspects gathered for that purpose in the murder house (but not Inspector Japp, who has strictly an "also with" role in the book.At the price being charged as of this date, the audio book is a bargain for those addicted to them as am I.