The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie

The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Agatha Christie’s first published novel and in it she introduces one of her famous long-running detectives, Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian detective, now retired and living in Essex, Kent. It amused me that Dame Christie, being ever so English, would not have her french-speaking character be from France, although it is quite understandable since a French character would not be viewed sympathetically in post-WWI England, Although written in 1916, it was not published until 1920. There are an awful lot of contemporary novelists (a lot of awful contemporary novelists?) that could learn from her well crafted and quite readable books.
Unlike many contemporary mystery novelists, The Mysterious Affair at Styles reveals all the clues necessary to solve the murder as the story goes along. The novel, set in England during WWI at an Essex country manor called Styles Court, involves a wealthy widow who had recently remarried a much younger man (she in her 70s, he in maybe his 40s). Early on in the book, the widow is murdered, and we follow as houseguest Lt. Hastings, an old friend of the widow’s stepson and Poirot follow a twisting path to discover who the elderly woman’s murderer is, and how they did it.
Dame Christie has always populated her novels with colorful characters, and this first work in no exceptions. She introduces us to a variety of characters, all not quite what they seem, and each with, perhaps, a reason to want the woman dead. The twists and turns Poirot and Hastings take as they work together and separately to figure the case out are delightful and believable, and have an unlikely, but logically sound (when you go back and look) conclusion.
I read this book in one afternoon on my iPad, and enjoyed it immensely. Enough that I am now in the process of downloading the rest of the Agatha Christie novels. The Wikipedia article about her is quite informative as well.
I strongly recommend this book to readers, even if they typically do not like “detective novels”. Because this is so not like the “detective novels” of today.