Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

First Read: September 2016, Rating: 4 Stars
Second Read: November 2018, Rating: 4 Stars

This is the first installment in the Hecule Poirot series and was just as brilliant as every other detective book I have read by the undoubted Queen of crime fiction!

The novel is set in an English manor house, Styles, owned by the the Cavendish family. Hastings, our protagonist, is staying with the family in their regal abode when the unexpected and inexplicable murder of Emily Cavendish (or the more recently referred to, Emily Inglethorpe) occurs. The murder scene, a locked bedroom, baffles detectives and family alike, and it is up to the famous Belgian detective to solve this unsolvable puzzle.

I already knew a death would occur before I even turned the first page, as this is a Christie novel, but that didn't dampen the thrilling atmosphere. The emphasis placed on Mrs Cavendish/Inglethorp's "as yet untasted coffee" early in the novel also led me to a premature conclusion concerning the victim and the means of her demise. Even this didn't hamper my enjoyment, but added to it: I adore playing the amateur sleuth and seeing if my predictions come true. And that is where Christie's brilliance lies. She involves the reader in the crime and places them in Poirot's role, in the hope of uncovering the clues that will lead to the answer of 'whoddunit?'.

I love Christie for giving us an almost voyeuristic insight into the historical upper-class. I also love that the characters continually dismiss Poirot. I have also experienced this in the Miss Marple series. Both are deemed 'past it' when they don't jump to the same, obvious conclusion as the other characters, yet the reader knows who will ultimately be proven correct.

As always, Christie takes the reader in a series of previously unsuspected direction before all is revealed and solved just before the close of the novel. This, as with all her other works, left me completely baffled throughout as to who the perpetrator of the crime was. I am no Poirot, but I enjoy attempting to assume his role in these thrilling insights into historical England.