The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Emily Inglethorp, the wealthy mistress of Styles Court, dies in convulsions behind a bolted bedroom door, and strychnine is found in her system. Suspicion falls immediately on her much younger new husband, whom the whole household despises, but the case against him is somehow too perfect. Lieutenant Hastings, recuperating at Styles, calls in an old acquaintance: a Belgian refugee lodging in the village, a retired policeman with an egg-shaped head and an obsessive love of order named Hercule Poirot.

This was Agatha Christie's first novel and the world's first sight of Poirot, and the machinery is already running beautifully: the scattered clues (a fragment of burned paper, a smashed coffee cup, a candle-wax stain) the parade of plausible suspects, and the final drawing-room gathering where the little Belgian rearranges everything you thought you knew. A tight, fair-play country-house mystery, ideal for a weekend of listening.

At roughly 60,300 words, The Mysterious Affair at Styles runs about 6½ hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The edition linked here is available from Project Gutenberg under its US public-domain listing. Check the edition, translation, completeness and copyright rules where you live. LoudReader lets you browse and download Gutenberg books; they are not all stored on installation. To listen:

1. Install LoudReader on iPhone or iPad, or its iPad app on a compatible Apple Silicon Mac.
2. Search for “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

Speech is generated locally without uploading the book for narration. Download the book and check your chosen voice before travelling offline. Available voices depend on your device; check the in-app voice list. Try every available voice for your first 8 hours of listening. Afterwards, keep a free English voice selection and unlimited book listening. No LoudReader account or word quota.