The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie
439 Rating(s)
List: $16.95 | Sale: $11.87
Club: $8.47

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Author: Agatha Christie

Narrator: John Rayburn

Unabridged: 6 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/20/2021


Synopsis

Published in 1920, this was the first book in a fantastic literary career for Agatha Christie. She went on to become the top-selling fiction author of all time with sales reaching an incredible one billion in English and another billion in a multitude of foreign language translations. Altogether, the Christie output has been excelled only by the Bible and Shakespeare. As a result, she was sometimes called the “Duchess of Death,” “Mistress of Mystery,” and “Queen of Crime,” all apt descriptions. The lead character in this initial manuscript, Hercule Poirot, was eventually featured in thirty-three novels and fifty short stories. Over the years, her other most renowned subject was Miss Marple. She didn’t make her first appearance until 1930 but wound up in a dozen novels and twenty short stories.Listen now to the start of the Christie saga.

About Agatha Christie

What a daunting task to write about the most famous mystery writer, Agatha Christie. She was born in 1890 in England, where she was home schooled by her American father. It was an unusual way to be educated for the times. Her father did not want her to begin learning to read until age eight, but out of boredom, she taught herself to read by age five.

In his research, Curran found a plethora of information about Agatha. He outlines many of those interesting facts. Since there are so many, just a few will be mentioned here. Agatha could have been an excellent performer as a pianist, but she was much too shy to perform. She once had three plays running simultaneously in London. She traveled around the world in 1922, which would have been quite a feat back then. Agatha loved dogs. She has a rose named after her. She never did drink alcohol nor smoked. Her last public appearance was in 1974, at the premier of the movie, Murder on the Orient Express. Agatha Christie's name has appeared every day for 53 years in every newspaper with a West End London theatre listing. Her favorite flower was Lily of the Valley. The information about this illustrious author goes on and on. It is a great asset to readers that author John Curran wrote the definitive book about an iconic author. One other interesting fact was that Agatha met Archie Christie in 1912, married on Christmas Eve 1914, spending their honeymoon at The Grand Hotel in Torquay, but Archie returned to France on Dec 27th due to the War. Agatha and Archie fid not really experience married life until he was posted at the London War Office. Agatha has been quoted as saying only then did she feel that her married life truly began.


Reviews

Goodreads review by mark on May 26, 2024

Choose Your Own Adventure! You are Captain Arthur Hastings, and you are slowly falling in love with a Belgian. The feelings are embarrassing at first; you find the Belgian himself to be quite an embarrassment. But there is just something about him. Could it be his suave, continental sense of humor.........more

Goodreads review by James on April 29, 2023

If you've read my reviews before, you know I love mystery fiction, and in particular, the classics. Agatha Christie died in 1976, and I was born the following year. Two things come to mind... (1) It's a good thing I wasn't alive when she died because I would have been so miserable to be around. (2)......more

Goodreads review by Sonja Rosa Lisa ♡ on July 03, 2022

Agatha Christie begleitet mich eigentlich schon seit meiner Kindheit. Ich habe schon recht früh begonnen, ihre Bücher zu lesen und habe die meisten immer sehr gemocht. Auch dieses Buch habe ich vor Jahren bereits gelesen, aber es war mal wieder Zeit für eine Wiederholung. Ich mag es immer noch sehr! :......more

Goodreads review by Anne on April 18, 2025

Poirot is introduced in this book, so how can you not love it?! Actually, pretty easily. This simply isn't Agatha Christie's best work. And that's mainly due to this being her first book. Yeah, so not only was she still figuring out who Poirot was, she was still figuring out this whole mystery writing......more

Goodreads review by Jaline on August 13, 2018

To celebrate completing my 1000th book of the decade, I chose Agatha Christie’s first Hercule Poirot mystery novel for this reading slot. I am especially proud of this milestone because earlier in the decade when I was working full-time there was one month (September 2014) where I only read one book......more


Quotes

“The only fault this story has is that it is almost too ingenious.” Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Characteristic Christie: cunning and subtle deception—Poirot scintillates.” Saturday Review