The Mysterious Affair at Styles

One morning at Styles Court, an Essex country manor, the elderly owner is found dead of strychnine poisoning. Arthur Hastings, a soldier staying there on sick leave from the Western Front, ventures out to the nearby village of Styles St. Mary to ask help from his friend Hercule Poirot, an eccentric Belgian inspector. Thus, in this classic whodunit, one of the most famous characters in detective fiction makes his debut on the world stage. With a half dozen suspects who all harbor secrets, it takes all of Poirot's prodigious sleuthing skills to untangle the mystery-but not before the inquiry undergoes scores of spellbinding twists and surprises. Contains the original illustrations and a detailed biography.

Agatha Christie is the world's best selling mystery writer. After several rejections, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published to instant acclaim, launching what became the unparalleled career of "The Queen of Mystery." Over the course of more than half a century she wrote eighty crime novels and short story collections, nineteen plays, and several poetry collections. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in the English language and another billion in a hundred other languages. Agatha Christie died in 1976.