The book that introduces Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings is a delightful read. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Poirot #1) ♦♦♦♦ And here is a quick review of the 13 books I have read so far. So yes, Agatha Christie is the Queen of Mystery. I’m gonna miss his voice once I’m done with this series. A couple of them (the most known stories) were narrated by David Suchet, who played Poirot and does an okay job of the narration and one by Anna Massey, but Hugh Fraser is my favorite by far.

They feel real to me.Īlso, most of these books are narrated by Hugh Fraser, who played Captain Hastings in the TV show and he is a joy to listen to. The mysteries are ingenious and keep me guessing, and although by definition not all characters in such books can have a lot of depth or nuance and tend to instead fall into a measure of stereotypes, I still feel like she’s respectful of her characters and they have agency. Captain Hastings is an absolute idiot, but I feel like he’s getting a little better since returning from “the Argentine”. Yes, he is still very much full of himself and caricature-esque, but in a loving grandfatherly way. Poirot is everything Sherlock turned out not to be: funny, attentive and not an arsehole. I should have trusted Agatha Christie from the start. I got the audiobook for The Mysterious Affair at Styles from the library, and if it became offensive in any way, I could just DNF it and move on with my life. Plus, it’s Agatha Christie, and I remember thoroughly enjoying it when I went to watch The Mousetrap in the West End. I’m not gonna lie, it made me very weary of picking up more classic mysteries.Īlas, a friend mentioned reading the Poirot novels in order, and I decided to take the plunge and give classic mysteries another chance.

It then took me about 3 years to wade my way through it after the first book because disappointingly enough, though not necessarily surprisingly, Arthur Conan Doyle is a bit racist, xenophobic, and maybe just a product of his time, but a tad misogynistic too.Įvery time he had more than a couple of pages he would find a way to be offensive, which made his books of short stories fine, but any novels impossible to properly enjoy. So a few years ago I got my hands of the complete works of Sherlock Holmes narrated by Stephen Fry and got really excited, because I’ve always enjoyed mysteries.

Poirot death on the links