An unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star of 6 December 1947 said, " Hercule Poirot ... here emulates his Olympian namesake, Hercules ... As the old-timer tackled the 12 classical labors ... so Mrs. Christie turns her dapper sleuth loose on 12 modern counterparts in the detection-mystery line.

Poirot has dark hair, which he dyes later in life ( though many of his screen incarnations are portrayed as bald or balding ), and green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining " like a cat's " when he is struck by a clever idea.

There is certainly a case for saying that Crooked House ( 1949 ) and Ordeal by Innocence ( 1957 ), which are not Poirot novels at all but so easily could have been, represent a logical endpoint of the general diminution of Poirot himself within the Poirot sequence.

" Poirot and Hastings are reunited in Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, having been earlier reunited in The ABC Murders and Dumb Witness when Hastings arrives in England for business.

In Agatha Christie's Poirot series of books, Poirot often has a tisane and accounts this as being the reason why his " little grey cells " are superior to others.

After Anne makes her gift suggestions and leaves, Poirot discovers that two pairs of the stockings are missing, confirming his suspicion that Anne is a thief, and seemingly giving weight to his suspicion that she stole from Mrs. Benson and killed her when she feared she had been discovered.

There are delightful passages when Poirot anxiously compares other moustaches with his own and awards his own the palm, when his lips are forced to utter the unaccustomed words ' I was in error ', when Mrs. Oliver, famous authoress, discourses upon art and craft of fiction.

Not that such minor matters are of the slightest consequence to the reader ; the main thing is that this is an Agatha Christie story, featuring Hercule Poirot, who is, by his own admission, the world's greatest detective.

The police are keen to arrest him, but Poirot intervenes by proving he could not have purchased the poison.

Poirot is also aided by his friends Hastings and Japp, while an Inspector Crome and a Dr. Thompson are also roped in.

Poirot offers him some financial advice and also hints that the headaches are actually due to the wrong power of his spectacles.

There are even similarities of role: Hastings is Poirot's only close friend, and the two share a flat briefly when Poirot sets up his detective agency.

Similarly to his friend Poirot, Hastings ' life and background before 1916 are pure estimation though the reader is able to pinpoint Hastings ' approximate birth year as 1886 as he mentions that John Cavendish was ' a good fifteen years senior ' though hardly looking ' his forty-five years ' in the first chapter of The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

Hastings's appearances in Poirot's later novels are restricted to a few cases in which he participates on his periodic returns to England from Argentina ; Poirot comments in The ABC Murders that he enjoys Hastings's visits because he always has his most interesting cases when Hastings is with him.

Like those of Miss Lemon and Arthur Hastings, the role of Inspector Japp in Poirot's career has been exaggerated by adaptations of Christie's original novels ; specifically by the TV series Agatha Christie's Poirot, where these characters are often introduced into stories that did not originally feature them.

Japp and Hastings are also generally astonished to find that Poirot cannot understand anything typically English ( like cricket, which he maintains is utter nonsense ).

In The Pale Horse, Mrs Oliver becomes acquainted with the Rev and Mrs Dane Calthrop, who are friends of Miss Marple ( The Moving Finger ); thus establishing that Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot exist in the same world.

The two are caught by a trap ; a matchbox filled with a chemical explodes knocking Hastings unconscious and killing Poirot.

But it was an act ; the lights went out and Poirot and Hastings are knocked unconscious and dragged away.

Among Contreras ' later film roles some of the best-known are as writer Rodolfo Walsh's version of Hercule Poirot in Santiago Carlos Oves ' Asesinato a Distancia ( Murder at a Distance, 1998 ), and as the merciless detective in Eduardo Mignogna's fact-based La fuga ( The Escape, 2001 ).

Poirot is also willing to appear more foreign or vain than he really is in an effort to make people underestimate him.

All these techniques help Poirot attain his principal target: " For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away …"

After solving a case Poirot has the habit of collecting all people involved into a single room and explaining them the reasoning that led him to the solution, and revealing that the murderer is one of them.

It could be suggested that in Murder on the Orient Express Poirot allows the murderers to escape justice as well, after he discovers that twelve different people stabbed the victim – Mr. Ratchett – in his sleep.

Poirot ( and, it is reasonable to suppose, his creator ) becomes increasingly bemused by the vulgarism of the up and coming generation's young people.

When a serial killer nicknamed ABC taunts Poirot in veiled letters and kills people in alphabetical order, Poirot employs an unconventional method to track down ABC.

Poirot claims that the real ABC had to have brains, motive and opportunity to kill the people.

In Chapter 19, Poirot reflects over his first case on England, where he " brought together two people who loved one another by the simple method of having one of them arrested for murder.

Poirot talks to Halliday's wife who tells him that her husband went to Paris on Thursday the 20 July to talk to some people connected with his work among them the notable French scientist Madame Olivier.

In Triangle at Rhodes, Poirot again witnesses an apparent liaison between two married people.

Shortly afterwards, however, a second death in suspiciously similar circumstances and with many of the same people present puts both Poirot and a team of sleuths on the trail of a poisoner whose motive is not clear.

Poirot finds that Mrs McGinty often worked as a cleaner at the houses of people in the village.

Poirot and Spence, using the ages of people in the town, conclude that someone is either Lily Gamboll, who committed murder with a meat cleaver as a child, or Eva Kane, who had been the love interest who inspired a man to murder his wife and bury her in the cellar.

Sir John died of natural causes but started speculation regarding superstition, the force of its suggestions on people being something that Poirot believes in – not any supernatural occurrences.

Poirot travels with Diana to the family seat of Lyde Manor where he meets the people involved.

They part on good terms, the Countess admitting that Poirot is one of the few people she fears.

Poirot and Hastings also meet the other people in the house.

Poirot was called in and immediately started to investigate people who shared the voyage to England with Wu Ling.

It is the occupant of the fifth floor flat who introduces himself as Hercule Poirot, the famous detective that the four people have heard of.

The police arrive and Poirot and the four people go back to Pat's flat where she makes them a much appreciated omelette.

On publication of the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to be given an obituary in the New York Times ; 6 August 1975 " Hercule Poirot is Dead ; Famed Belgian Detective ".

We do not know whether this case resulted in a successful prosecution or not ; moreover, Poirot is not above lying in order to produce a particular effect in the person to whom he is speaking, so this evidence is not reliable.

* José Ferrer, Hercule Poirot ( 1961 ; Unaired TV Pilot, MGM ; adaptation of " The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim ")

The other Rutherford films ( all directed by George Pollock ) were Murder at the Gallop ( 1963 ), based on the 1953 Hercule Poirot novel After the Funeral ( In this film, she is identified as Miss JTV Marple, though there was no indication as to what the extra initials might stand for ); Murder Most Foul ( 1964 ), based on the 1952 Poirot novel Mrs McGinty's Dead ; and Murder Ahoy!

He arranges a dinner party to show off this collection ; Poirot is apprehensive.

Roberts, Meredith, Lorrimer, and Despard play in the first room, while Poirot, Oliver, Race, and Battle play in the next ; Shaitana settles himself in a chair in the first room and thinks of how wonderfully his party is going.

He testifies that he saw Roberts inject Lorrimer with a syringe ; a syringe, Poirot reveals, full of a lethal anaesthetic.

* Hercule Poirot, a famous Belgian detective displaced by the war to England ; Hastings ' old friend

In other respects there is very little personal detail regarding him in these novels, until Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, which is presumed to take place a great many years later ; with his wife now dead, Hastings rejoins Poirot at Styles to help Poirot tackle one last case, Poirot dying of a heart attack at the conclusion but leaving Hastings a confession explaining his role in events.

James Japp, while being a competent detective, is no match for Poirot ; he frequently finds himself a step behind the great detective but has developed a grudging respect for the man's abilities over their years together.

Mrs. Oliver repeats to Poirot Joyce's comment that she had once witnessed a murder ; Mrs. Oliver now wonders if Joyce might have been telling the truth, which might provide someone with a motive for killing her.

Highbrow British mysteries including Agatha Christie's Poirot, Cracker, Dalziel and Pascoe, Inspector Morse, Lovejoy, Midsomer Murders, the Joan Hickson Miss Marple series and Sherlock Holmes were also featured ; several of these series were produced in association with A & E.

* Poirot: The Victory Ball ; How Does Your Garden Grow?