Hercule Poirot: Difference between revisions

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Originally a Belgian police detective, he became a refugee when the First World War broke out and ended up in the tiny English village of Styles St. Mary. Naturally, while he was there, someone was murdered. It was, Poirot later admitted, quite a common occurrence around him. Solving ''The Mysterious Affair at Styles'' revitalised him, however, and he embarked on a career as a private detective.

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== Novels in this series ==

* ''The Murder on the Links'' (1923).

* ''[[The Murder of Roger Ackroyd]]'' (1926).

* ''Peril at End House'' (1932).

* ''Lord Edgware Dies'' (1933).

* ''Three Act Tragedy'' (1935).

* ''Death in the Clouds'' (1935).

* ''Cards on the Table'' (1936).

* ''Dumb Witness'' (1937).

* ''Appointment with Death'' (1938).

* ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'' (1938).

* ''One, Two, Buckle My Shoe'' (1940).

* ''Evil Under the Sun'' (1941).

* ''The Hollow'' (1946).

* ''Taken at the Flood'' (1948).

* [[Always Murder]]

* [[Always Someone Better]]: subverted, since of course there is no one better than Hercule Poirot. Not even his brother Achille. {{spoiler|Who doesn't exist.}}

* [[Big Screwed-Up Family]]: The Boyntons in ''Appointment with Death''.

* [[Brain Fever]]: in ''Murder on the Links.'' Interestingly, in ''The Big Four'', a doctor dismisses brain fever as an invention of writers.

* [[Creator Backlash]]: as the quote at the top of this article suggests, Agatha Christie much preferred her other character, [[Miss Marple]].

* [[Dead Man's Chest]]: "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook"

* [[Detective Patsy]]: Poirot is far too clever to fall for this, but occasionally he despairs of Hastings.

* [[Eagle-Eye Detection]]

* [[Insistent Terminology]]: Poirot is '''Belgian''', not '''French'''.

* [[Insufferable Genius]]: Sometimes comes off as this.

* [[The Lestrade]]: Inspector Japp. Giraud from ''Murder on the Links'' is a parody of this type.

* [[Long Runners]]: fifty-five years' worth of novels is not so bad.

* [[The Matchmaker]]: It's astounding how many relationships and marriages were influenced by the fastidious hand of Monsieur Poirot.

* [[Mistaken Nationality]]: he is ''Belgian'', not French. It annoys him, although Hercule Poirot does not forget his dignity so far as to call it a [[Berserk Button]].

* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: Poirot frequently plays the dotty old man to disarm suspects, making them more vulnerable to his questioning. He also uses his accent to this purpose, as he explains in ''Three-Act Tragedy'':

{{quote| ''"It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say - a foreigner - he can't even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people - instead, I invite their gentle ridicule. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, 'A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.' That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard."''}}

* [[Third Person Person]]: Often crosses with a pat-my-own back [[But He Sounds Handsome]].

* [[This Is Sparta]]: ''"Madame! WHO DO '''YOU''' THINK KILLED YOUR HUSBAND?"'', from ''Lord Edgware Dies''.

* [[Under the Mistletoe]]: Poirot, of all people, gets caught under mistletoe in "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", on account of being too busy exercising his little grey cells to notice where he's standing. He doesn't seem to mind the result.

* [[The Watson]]: Captain Hastings in the early novels, a variety of one-shot characters in the later books.

'''Murderer (Until then a suspect)''': That's impossible, I wore gloves. }}

* [[You Look Familiar]]: Prior to playing the famous detective himself, David Suchet appeared as Inspector Japp opposite Peter Ustinov's Poirot in a 1985 TV adaptation of ''Lord Edgware Dies''.

* [[You Watch Too Much X]]: in "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding":

{{quote| Poirot surveyed her gravely for some minutes.<br />