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.

The first Hercule Poirot began with tram passengers and Belgian refugees.

: " By the step leading up into the sleeping-car stood a young Belgian lieutenant, resplendent in uniform, conversing with a small man ( Hercule Poirot ) muffled up to the ears of whom nothing was visible but a pink-tipped nose and the two points of an upward-curled moustache.

Christie wrote little of Poirot ’ s childhood though in Three Act Tragedy she writes that he comes from a large family with little wealth.

In the short story The Chocolate Box ( 1923 ) Poirot provides Captain Arthur Hastings with an account of what he considers to be his only failure.

Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice.

In The Nemean Lion, he sided with the criminal, Miss Amy Carnaby, and saved her from having to face justice by blackmailing his client Sir Joseph Hoggins, who himself was plotting murder and was unwise enough to let Poirot discover this.

Just a case or two, just one case more – the Prima Donna ’ s farewell performance won ’ t be in it with yours, Poirot.

Beginning with Three Act Tragedy ( 1934 ), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a sub-genre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events.

Notably, during this time his physical characteristics also change dramatically, and by the time Arthur Hastings meets Poirot again in Curtain, he looks very different from his previous appearances, having become thin with age and with obviously dyed hair.

Japp is outgoing, loud and sometimes inconsiderate by nature, and his relationship with the bourgeois Belgian is one of the stranger aspects of Poirot ’ s world.

These favours usually entail Poirot being supplied with cases that would interest him.

Hercule Poirot became famous with the publication, in 1926, of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, whose surprising solution proved controversial.

Peter Ustinov played Poirot a total of six times, starting with Death on the Nile ( 1978 ).

In Agatha Christie's, " Appointment with Death " ( 1938 ), the mysterious and enigmatic Petra is the setting for a murder mystery featuring Hercule Poirot.

Suchet appeared as Inspector Japp in the 1985 film adaptation of Lord Edgware Dies, screen-name Thirteen at Dinner, with Peter Ustinov portraying Poirot.

Shaitana jokes about Poirot's visit to the snuff box exhibition, and claims that he has a better " collection " that Poirot would enjoy: individuals who have got away with murder.

Once the preliminary police work has been done, Poirot reveals Shaitana's strange mention of a " collection " to the other three with whom he played bridge.

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

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

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.

Frustrated with the evident artificiality of the blowpipe, an item that could hardly have been used without being seen by another passenger, Poirot suggests that the means of delivering the dart may have been something else.

Not content with solving the mystery, Poirot invites Mr. Clancy to the Denouncement where he gleefully allows the Novelist to see how a Real Life Detective solves a case, to both men's great enjoyment, and finally in a single stroke Poirot makes a romantic match by pairing off Jane Grey with the younger of the archaeologists.

Poirot even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff before her dog kidnapping campaign came to an end.

Poirot was voiced by Kōtarō Satomi and Miss Marple was voiced by Kaoru Yachigusa.

Miss Marple also appears in Greenshaw's Folly, a short story traditionally included as part of the Poirot collection The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding ( 1960 ).

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!

Rutherford also appeared briefly as Miss Marple in the spoof Hercule Poirot adventure The Alphabet Murders ( 1965 ).

The character of Jessica Fletcher is thought to be based on a combination of Miss Marple, Agatha Christie herself, and another Christie character, Ariadne Oliver, who often appears in the Hercule Poirot mysteries.

From 2004 to 2005, Japanese TV network NHK produced a 39 episode anime series titled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, which features both Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.

Many of the most popular books of the Golden Age were written by Agatha Christie, who produced a long series of books featuring her detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, amongst others, and usually including a complex puzzle for the reader to try to unravel.

Christie's works, particularly featuring detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple, have given her the title the ' Queen of Crime ' and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the genre.

Though this may be the first published book of Miss Agatha Christie, she betrays the cunning of an old hand … You must wait for the last-but-one chapter in the book for the last link in the chain of evidence that enabled Mr. Poirot to unravel the whole complicated plot and lay the guilt where it really belonged.

On page 509 of her autobiography Christie refers to the last Poirot and Miss Marple novels that she penned during the Second World War by saying she had written an extra two books during the first years of the war in anticipation of being killed in the raids, as she was working in London.

One was for Rosalind, she says, which she wrote first – a book with Hercule Poirot in it – and the other was for Max – with Miss Marple in it.

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.

Miss Marple, a character created by Agatha Christie and portrayed by Margaret Rutherford, and Margaret's husband Stringer Davis had a cameo role in The Alphabet Murders, a movie based on another of Christie's books and which featured Hercule Poirot.

When Poirot goes Elms School, he is greeted by the headmistress, Miss Emlyn.

Robert Weaver in the Toronto Daily Star of December 13, 1969 said, " Hallowe ' en Party ... is a disappointment, but with all her accomplishments Miss Christie can be forgiven some disappointments ... Poirot seems weary and so does the book.

* Miss Emlyn mentions in Chapter 10 that she knows of Poirot from Miss Bulstrode, who previously appeared as a character in Cat Among the Pigeons.

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.

Poirot warns Entwhistle that Miss Gilchrist may herself be a target for the murderer.