4/5
This is Agatha Christie's first Poirot book, where we meet Hastings, an injured war soldier, and Poirot, an ex Belgian policeman and genius. Hastings goes to stay with an old friend of his at Styles Court - this friend's stepmother's home. He meets a variety of people there, who all end up as the suspects as you would expect. One night, after an argument between step-mother and new husband, the stepmum meets her maker in a violet end - she is quite clearly poisoned. Hastings rushes off for help, and who does he bump into, but his old friend Poirot. Handy, that. Poirot investigates the scene and makes some interesting discoveries. Everyone suspects the new husband, as he has the strongest motive - he is much younger than old step-mum, so clearly must have only married her for her money. A few red herrings are thrown in for good measure, and a few more people are suspected, after which Poirot solves the case whilst making Hastings look like the bumbling, but charming, idiot that he is.
I really enjoyed this book, and was actually quite annoyed that life got in the way and I couldn't read the whole book in one sitting. That said though, I did feel that the way in which it was written made it impossible for any reader to come up with the correct solution themselves. The clues were very misleading, using the language to pretty much trick the reader. I'm not sure if that's because it was Christie's first Poirot book, or whether all of the books will be like that. I will continue to read more Poirot books, just because I love him, Hastings and Jaap, and it was a very enjoyable read at the end of the day. I'm only giving it a 4 instead of a 5 because of the misleading nature of the clues.
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