Dear Agatha,
I read your first published novel last week, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Of course I loved it; it was great fun thinking I knew whodunit and of course, as usual, finding out that I am more like Hastings than the marvelous Poirot in the sleuthing department.
So I've done a little extra-curricular reading about you, Agatha. I've learned that this wasn't your first novel, or even your first published work, although it is your first published novel. What an impressive debut - and I'm so glad that your foray into detective work was with the creation of the marvelous, charming Hercule Poirot!
I also found that this book was written in challenge to a bet with your sister Madge! How fun is that? And that we have a couple of things in common, Agatha: our birthdays are only a week apart, and we both worked, in our young adulthood, in pharmacies. At one time, I thought my pharmacy experience might make good fodder for a novel some day, but it would've unfortunately been more like a soap opera than The Mysterious Affair at Styles. That said, the dispensary experiences you had were worlds away from mine... I guess 75 years and two different countries might account for some of that.
Finally, I read that about 10 years after this novel was published, a real-life murder was committed using the same tactics (though not actual method of murder) that the murderer of Emily Inglethorpe used! Seems he might've been inspired by your book (Osborne, 17). I wonder what your take on that was!
Well, dear Agatha, it's just about time to meet Tommy and Tuppence in your next book. I haven't yet read any of your books with them, so I'm excited to finally meet and get to know them. Before I do, however, I will watch the movie version of Styles as soon as it arrives. Coincidentally, I am reading your Autobiography as I go as well. That's a big deal for me - to read two or three books at once drives my little gray cells mad.
With great admiration,
Beth
Dear Agatha,
ReplyDeleteI spent this amazing Saturday afternoon watching the video of the book with my 15-year-old daughter. It was her first introduction to anything Agatha, and she actually really enjoyed it, although she said parts confused her. I thought it was well done myself, although the movies are just never as good as the books, are they? So much has to be left out, so many details, back story, all that. I think I might even reread the book now with the insights that the solution provide.
A perfect day - nothing on the calendar for the first time in months, my Ro home from Montana, breakfast out, a good nap, and a couple hours with Poirot and Hastings.
With admiration,
Beth
The marvelous, charming Hercule Poirot that's really French but covers it up by saying that he's Belgian.
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