The Mysterious Affair at Styles

One hundred years ago this month, one of my favourite authors released onto the unsuspecting world a character that captivated my imagination and stayed with me throughout my life.  That author was Agatha Christie and that character was her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.  He made his first appearance in The Mysterious Affair at Styles which was published in America in October 1920.  Unfortunately for us Brits, Poirot would not make it across the Atlantic until January 1921 when the book was published here.

I first came across detective fiction as a bored 12 year old who strayed across from the children’s section of the library to where all the books for adults were shelved.  Being a highly methodical child I began my browsing at the letter A.  My fist detective story was A Bone and a Hank of Hair by Leo Bruce.  Even now I can remember the cover and his amateur detective was Carolus Deene.  I can distinctly recall thinking what a ridiculous name Carolus was.  But my education at that point was incomplete and I had no idea that Carolus was the latinised version of the German name Carl which meant ‘free man’.  I got my book stamped by the librarian, who gave me an odd look when doing so, and I took it home and devoured it.  The pages had been well thumbed by many other readers so the book had been around for a while.  However, Carolus Deene, I thought, wasn’t really so clever, as I worked the ending before he did!

On further trips to the library I continued my search for these puzzle books as I thought of them, little understanding the complexity of the genre, nor realizing they fell into the category of cosy crime.  On reaching letter C, I not only discovered Agatha Christie but I also found Raymond Chandler, Leslie Charteris, G. K. Chesterton and Wilkie Collins.  By this time, I’d got used to the regular interrogations from the lady at the library and whenever she raised an eyebrow at one of my choices, I told her the queried book was for my dad!  But I was hooked.

My first ever Agatha Christie was Why Didn’t they Ask Evans?  And no that’s not a Poirot book, but the puzzle she so carefully laid out kept me guessing right until the end.  My first ever Poirot story was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, first published in 1926.  From that point on I knew I would be reading every other story that featured this eccentric, but fascinating Belgian with his little grey cells.  I remained with letter C for a good few months and when the next Poirot book I wanted wasn’t available, I took up Christie’s Jane Marple series whilst I waited for the book I really wanted to be returned.  If there was no Poirot or Marple to read I started the Tommy and Tuppence Beresford stories.

Of course, by this time, I’d been rumbled.  It was a chance meeting in the local post office between my mum and the library lady and her need to enquire if my dad was enjoying all the detective fiction his daughter kept getting him on her own library card.  That necessitated a talk from my father about honesty and a trip with him to the library to apologise to the librarian for fibbing.  But the best bit wasn’t expected.  My dad then went onto say that he hoped my reading habits would not be questioned again and that I could read detective fiction as much as I liked with his blessing.  Until that point I had had no idea that my father found detective fiction interesting.  From then on my choice of books was always a subject for discussion, often with him recommending other writers such as Simenon, Conan Doyle and many, many others.

Regrettably dad is no longer around, but I have often wondered what he would have thought or said if he knew that the day we went to library would set me on the path that would culminate with me creating my own detective and writing my own cosy crime stories.