Hercule Poirot

Agatha Christie wrote a fair number of novels in which the Belgian 'hero' plays an important role. A semi-complete list is presented here.

• The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
• The Murder on the Links (1923)
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
• The Big Four (1927)
• The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
• Peril at End House (1931)
• Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
• Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
• Death in the Clouds (1935)
• Three Act Tragedy (1935)
• The ABC Murders (1936)
• Cards on the Table (1936)
• Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
• Death on the Nile (1937)
• Dumb Witness (1937)
• Appointment with Death (1938)
• Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938)
• One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)
• Evil Under the Sun (1941)
• Five Little Pigs (1943)
• The Hollow (1946)
• Taken at the Flood (1948)
• Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)
• After the Funeral (1953)
• Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
• Dead Man's Folly (1956)
• Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
• The Clocks (1963)
• Third Girl (1966)
• Hallowe'en Party (1969)
• Elephants Can Remember (1972)
• Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (1975)

My personal favorite of these is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but all of the above can be highly recommended.

The ultimate ideal of the peculiar little Belgian's personal morality is order, method and neatness in all things. He keeps his environment and person fanatically clean, neat and symmetrical, and applies the same pedantic system to his detective work. In that, however, the order and neatness he desires are to remain inside the confines of his head, and be applied to what he affectionately terms his "little grey cells".

Disdaining the crawling on all fours magnifying glass in hand, looking for that all-important clue which is so popular with other detectives, Poirot relies on his awesome intellect to help him solve the most profound and perplexing of mysteries from the comfort of his armchair - and solve them he does.

Many of Poirot's cases are documented by his friend and companion Captain Hastings, who never ceases to marvel at his friend's ingenuity, as well as his staggering arrogance. When Hastings gets married and moves to Argentina with his wife, a host of other supporting characters is introduced, but, loyal to their partnership, Poirot henceforth works alone.

Not a single instance is ever witnessed in which Poirot is duped or taken in, or even just plainly mistaken. There was one case, when he was young, in which he made rather a fool of himself, but...that was many years ago, and he doesn't like to talk about it...