The novel is an absolutely Fair Play Whodunit if anything, it has an overabundance of clues (as well as an overabundance of red herrings) which would not be seen in Christie’s later works.Ī review from the Pharmaceutical Journal, which applauded “this detective story for dealing with poisons in a knowledgeable way, and not with the nonsense about untraceable substances that so often happens” was Christie’s personal favorite. When Mrs Inglethorp dies, displaying symptoms alarmingly like those of strychnine poisoning, Poirot is asked and agrees to investigate the case. He is a war refugee staying at a village near Styles Court and meets Hastings coincidentally. Poirot is introduced as a retired Belgian detective and an old friend of Hastings’s. Hastings also meets John’s beautiful but enigmatic wife, Mary Cavendish, his nervous brother, Lawrence Cavendish, the mysterious Doctor Bauerstein, Mrs Inglethorp's companion Evelyn Howard, and her young protégé Cynthia Murdoch. On his arrival there, he meets John’s stepmother Emily, a generous but difficult woman who has recently married Alfred Inglethorp, a man much younger than her.
The novel is narrated in first person by Lieutenant Hastings, who, returning invalided from World War I, is invited by his childhood friend John Cavendish at the family manor, Styles Court. Written (and set) during World War I but first published in 1920. Or was he French? You know the one- that funny little man with the egg-shaped head and the ridiculous moustache. It was the first novel she wrote and the one where that Belgian detective of hers was introduced.
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