This was the third novel by Agatha Christie, and the second to feature her iconic character, Hercule Poirot. I did actually prefer the Tommy and Tuppence duo from The Secret Adversary, but Poirot himself was easily one of my favourite things about The Strange Affair at Styles and so I was keen to find out more about his adventures.
The story starts with an interesting encounter between Poirot’s companion, Hastings, and a mysterious woman who goes by “Cinderella” on a train. It’s intriguing and gets things off to a good start. Later, he and Poirot head to France on the request of a new client – unfortunately, once they arrive, they find that that client has been murdered, and so the investigations begin. Poirot ends up arrogantly butting heads with local law enforcement in a comical way, and the two begin to study clues and consider motives.
I’ll admit that for a while, I kind of started to think “This just feels like a by-the-numbers murder mystery.” It was fine, but I didn’t really feel that invested in it – certainly not as much as I’d felt invested in The Secret Adversary. I certainly smiled at the odd quip, but it wasn’t that much of an exciting read.
Until the final act. By golly. Since Agatha Christie follows a fairly similar formula to Arthur Conan Doyle with the Sherlock Holmes stories (which I’ve read all of), I started to wonder if it just seemed formulaic because I had consumed so much similar stuff – but then near the end, you have something that would have never happened between Holmes and Watson, and that really elevated my opinion of the whole novel (the solution to the mystery was alright too.)
So while I do think it sags quite a lot in the middle, this is a novel that comes together well enough in the end that I think it’s well worth reading – especially if you love the usual antics of Poirot and Hastings, or Holmes and Watson. It does something interesting with the dynamic that I would never have guessed.
Rating: 6.4/10
