Oct 03, 2011 02:09 PM
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(Updated Oct 03, 2011 02:11 PM)
A cold – blooded murder would be easy for a man to commit, but for a woman, poison is the most powerful weapon.
Agatha Christie: The best selling English author of her times, Agatha Mary Clarissa or Agatha Christie enjoyed huge popularity with just the bible ahead of her books in sales! The queen of crime had the protagonist leading his way through investigations or the flamboyant Hercule Poirot or the suave Miss Marple.
Story: Hastings (the person narrating the story) has been invited to a quiet village of the name 'Styles' by his friend John Cavendish. John stays with his wife Mary, younger brother Lawrence, step mother Emily Inglethorp and his new step father Mr. Inglethorp. Emily Inglethrop is a dominating old lady of 70 and is a wealthy heiress. All is fine in the peaceful village till Emily is poisoned with, presumably, strychnine and dies. Strychnine is known to be a poison which is supposed to act rapidly. However, the lady dies only after 9 hours after experiencing convulsions. How is this possible? Who could be so desperately after her loaded purse?
What makes things confusing is that Mrs. Emily made a new will each year according to her impulses; Each will has a different heir to her wealth. The latest will seems to have been burnt. Hercule Poirot(who happens to be in the neighbourhood, by chance) is summoned by Hastings to investigate this case.
Newspapers scream with the headlines- "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" and make the family a prey for gossipmongers.
List of suspects-
1. Mr. Inglethrop: He is Emily's husband since just 2 months and his background is not known to anyone. He is 20 yrs younger to her. There are rumours that he married her only for money. As proceedings of court go, there seems to be enough evidence indicating him as guilty. She had had a heated argument with him just the previous evening. Were the rumours true after all?
2. John Cavendish: The victim's elder stepson and Hastings' host and good friend. Although he is a sober person who prefers not to show his inner feelings to the public, he was hard up ever since his step mother remarried. He had wishes to set up a new home, but he never had a free hand over the wealth. Will lust for money force him to take this extreme step?
3. Mary Cavendish: John's wife also had some argument with her mother-in-law during her final hours. She was anyway not emotionally attached to her. Moreover, she could be having a secret affair with someone. Poison seems to be the most powerful weapon for a woman to kill someone. Could Mary be the culprit?
4. Lawrence Cavendish: He is the younger, very emotional step son of the victim. He insists from the very beginning that there should be no police proceedings in this matter since it is a natural death occurred only because his mom accidentally had an overdose of her regular tonic. Is he is scared of getting caught?
5. Cynthia- She's staying with John and family since 2 yrs. A nurse by profession, she was almost bossed by Emily. A nurse could have a lot of information on poisons! Was this knowledge put to use by her?
6. Dr. Bauerstein- The family doctor obviously has thorough knowledge of poisons, and weirdly appears exactly at the time of Emily’s last moments(early hours of the day). Why was he lingering around on a dark night?
There are clues and pointers strewn around. Let’s leave it to the systematic and resourceful Poirot to deduce the culprit!
My Opinion- The story started off well and was immensely gripping. But Hastings seemed a weird guy to me. He, on one hand, proposed Cynthia though he didn’t even know her properly. He himself admits that he doesn’t know what drove him to take this step. On the other hand, he has this soft corner for Mary Cavendish though she is his host's wife and, moreover, a strong suspect. When the narrator himself is confused, the reader tends to lose concentration a bit!
Sadly, there was not a moment when I exclaimed, "Why did I not think it this way?" The exclamation was more like, "Oh, so this was possible." Maybe, after reading ‘The Pale Horse’ and ‘And then there were none’, I had set sky high expectations! The last two chapters successfully closing all ends were interesting. Agatha Christie’s attention to detail never fails to spellbind me. Overall, a good read.
And this is my 25th review on MS! What a milestone! :P
