Holtorf ’ s description of the archaeologist as a detective is very similar to Christie ’ s Poirot who is hugely observant and is very careful to look at the small details as they often impart the most information.

Hercule Poirot (; ) is a fictional Belgian detective, created by Agatha Christie.

Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels, one play, and more than 50 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.

A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle.

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 ".

Here is how Captain Arthur Hastings first describes Poirot:

This is how Agatha Christie describes Poirot in The Murder on the Orient Express in the initial pages:

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.

Poirot is extremely punctual and carries a turnip pocket watch almost to the end of his career.

Poirot, as mentioned in Curtain and The Clocks, is extremely fond of classical music, particularly Mozart and Bach.

In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot operates as a fairly conventional, clue-based detective, depending on logic, which is represented in his vocabulary by two common phrases: his use of " the little grey cells " and " order and method ".

Irritating to Hastings is the fact that Poirot will sometimes conceal from him important details of his plans, as in The Big Four where Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax.

This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels, partly because there is rarely a narrator so there is no one for Poirot to mislead.

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

In the later novels Christie often uses the word mountebank when Poirot is being assessed by other characters, showing that he has successfully passed himself off as a charlatan or fraud.

Maurice Richardson was pleased to see the return of Poirot to Christie's works when he reviewed the novel in the 10 January 1943 issue of The Observer.

Looking round the house, Poirot is pleased with the dead man ’ s order and method with the exception of one aspect – the key to a rolltop desk is not affixed to a neat label but instead to a dirty envelope.

Christie made a point of having Poirot supply false or misleading information about himself or his background in order to assist him in obtaining information relevant to a particular case.

At this point, Mrs. Lorrimer contacts Poirot with surprising news.

In two of the books in which he appears — The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The ABC Murders — Hastings plays a prominent role in the resolution of the mystery, with a casual observation he makes at one point in the novel leading Poirot to realise the guilty party: By mentioning that Poirot had to straighten some spill holders and ornaments in Styles, he prompts Poirot to realise that someone had moved them, thus allowing Poirot to discover a crucial piece of evidence, and when he suggests that an incorrectly addressed letter revealing the latest crime in ABC Murders was addressed that way on purpose, Poirot realises that the letter had indeed been wrongly addressed deliberately so that it would not be received until after the murderer had committed his crime, revealing that the murderer had attached greater importance to that particular murder, and wanted to be certain that it was committed.

He recognized Poirot at the inquest, so makes a point of finding him in London to learn why.

" The reviewer then went on to outline the set-up of the plot up to the point where Poirot receives Emily Arundell's letter and then said, " Why should the story not have begun at this point?

All of them have point and ingenuity, and if M. Poirot is infallibly and exasperatingly omniscient, well, that is the function of the detective in fiction.

Poirot is uninterested until the Home Secretary, Sir George Conway, uses the phrase " The Augean Stables " at which point he agrees to assist.

In chapter 21 of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for example, Poirot talks about a mentally disabled nephew: this proves to be a ruse so that he can find out about homes for the mentally unfit, and in Dumb Witness, Poirot tells of an elderly invalid mother as a pretence to investigate the local nurses.

Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth.

In terms of a rudimentary chronology, Poirot speaks of retiring to grow marrows in Chapter 18 of The Big Four ( 1927 ), which places that novel out of published order before Roger Ackroyd.

Suchet said that he prepared for the part by reading all the Poirot novels and every short story, and copying out every piece of description about the character.

Poirot points out that in the third rubber of bridge on the night of Shaitana's murder, a grand slam occurred.

A review in the Daily Mirror of July 20, 1935 concluded, " We leave Poirot to figure it all out.

Poirot clears Cavendish by proving it was, after all, Alfred Inglethorp who committed the crime, assisted by Evelyn Howard, who turns out to be his kissing cousin, not his enemy.

Once acquitted, due to double jeopardy, he could not be tried for the crime a second time should any genuine evidence against him be subsequently discovered, hence prompting Poirot to keep him out of prison when he realized that Alfred wanted to be arrested.

M. Poirot, the hero of The Mysterious Affair at Stiles and other brilliant pieces of detective deduction, comes out of his temporary retirement like a giant refreshed, to undertake the investigation of a peculiarly brutal and mysterious murder.

Despite a flimsy alibi, Poirot reasons out that Franz would not have the required brains to pass off her murder as a serial killing.

In Chapter 3, Poirot lays out the plot of what he considers a perfect crime, a crime so challenging that ' even he ' would find it hard to solve.

Meanwhile, a mathematics teacher named Elizabeth Whittaker, who was also present at the party, gives Hercule Poirot an important piece of evidence when she reveals that while the party-goers were playing Snapdragon, Elizabeth went out to hall and saw Rowena Drake coming out of the lavatory on the first floor landing.

The case is also recollected by Poirot in Chapter 3, when Poirot recalls Mrs. Oliver getting out of a car and “ a bag of apples breaking ”.

Mr. Entwhistle and Hercule Poirot suspect her punishment might be served in Broadmoor, but have no doubt she had plotted and carried out the cold blooded murder in full possession of her faculties — this ladylike murderer.

The note came from Hoppaton so Poirot, Hastings and Ingles go to Hoppaton and find out that the man who wrote the note, a Mr. Jonathan Whalley has been murdered.

After the proceedings in the flat, Poirot and Hastings return home and Poirot takes out a second white bishop.

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

She published thirteen Poirot novels between 1935 and 1942 out of a total of eighteen novels in that period.

( As she had described the theft of the valerian in the future tense Poirot realised Angela had never carried out the act ; she had completely forgotten she had stolen the valerian on the morning of that fateful day ).

In 1960, Christie adapted the book into a play, Go Back For Murder, but edited Poirot out of the story.

Poirot takes Hastings over the evidence, pointing out that his belief that he saw Norton that night relies on loose evidence: the dressing-gown, the hair, the limp.