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.

Hastings, a former British Army officer, first meets Poirot during Poirot's years as a police officer in Belgium and almost immediately after they both arrive in England.

However, when forced to choose between Poirot and his wife in that novel, he initially chooses to betray Poirot to the Big Four so that they would not torture and kill his wife.

He first met Poirot in Belgium, 1904, during the Abercrombie Forgery and later that year they joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara.

On 30 March, 2009, they released Agatha Christie's Poirot – Complete Collection, a 28-disc box set that features all 61 episodes up to and including the 2009 season.

* In Chapter 12 of a later Poirot novel, Mrs McGinty's Dead ( 1952 ), Christie's alter ego, Ariadne Oliver, refers to a novel of hers in which she made a blowpipe one foot long only to be told later that they were six feet long.

The screenplay followed the book closely with some minor changes and some characters omitted: in the adaptation there was only one archeologist, there was no doctor, Jane was a stewardess and in the end Poirot does not match Jane with young archeologist as mentioned in the novel and some other minor changes ( such as in the TV adaptation, Poirot takes Japp to Paris, whereas in the book he takes the French Surete detective and also in the book most of the characters have come from Le Pinet where they have been enjoying some time at the casino, whereas in the adaptation the characters have been at a tennis match in Paris.

Poirot sends Mrs. Oliver to get Mrs. Butler and Miranda safely away from the village as soon as possible, but when they stop for lunch, Miranda is abducted by Michael Garfield, who takes her to a pagan sacrificial altar and tries to kill her.

* Superintendent Spence brought to Poirot the case solved in Mrs. McGinty's Dead and which they discuss in Chapter 5.

Poirot and Hastings visit Madame Olivier, question her but while leaving they catch a glimpse of a veiled lady who Poirot is interested in.

Poirot and Hastings board a train, and in the confusion of a signal failure caused by Poirot's friend, they return to Mme.

The Times Literary Supplement review of the book publication struck a positive although incorrect note in its issue of 3 February 1927 when they assumed that the different style of the book from its immediate predecessor, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was a deliberate ploy: " M. Poirot, the Belgian detective who has figured in others of Mrs Christie's tales, is in very good form in the latest series of adventures.

She ’ s the sort of woman, I think, that men would get tired of very easily .” In Evil under the Sun, Poirot says of Arlena Marshall “ She was the type of woman whom men care for easily and of whom they easily tire .”

Poirot labels the five alternative suspects “ the five little pigs ”: they comprise Phillip Blake (" went to the market "); Philip's brother, Meredith Blake (" stayed at home "); Elsa Greer ( now Lady Dittisham, " had roast beef "); Cecilia Williams, the governess (" had none "); and Angela Warren, Caroline ’ s younger half-sister (" went ' Wee!

In it, Poirot reveals that he wore a false moustache as well as a wig and explains that X was Norton, a man who had perfected the technique of which Iago in Othello ( like a character in Ervine's play ) is master: applying just such psychological pressure as is needed to provoke someone to commit murder, where normally they would let the other live and dismiss their desires as simply the heat of the moment, without anyone ever truly realising what he is doing.

The mystery of who left the note on Poirot's pillow is solved when one of the housemaids confesses that she heard Lee-Wortley and his " sister " discussing getting Poirot out of the way and that something had been put in the pudding, causing her to think they planned to poison him.

Poirot is interested in the dead man's teeth and it is confirmed that they were very white for their age ...

The murder and the solution of it are ingenious, but then, with Miss Christie, they always are, and it is pleasant to watch M. Hercule Poirot at work again.

In the denouement of the novel Poirot is able to unmask several characters: Pilar is an imposter who took Pilar's identity when the other woman died when the taxi they were both in was bombed.

I am sure that some purists will reverse my decision on the ground that the author to get her effect, has broken what they consider to be one of the major rules of detective writing ; but I hold that in a Poirot tale it should be a case of caveat lector, and that the rules were not made for Agatha Christie.

The collection comprises twelve of her fourteen stories featuring detective James Parker Pyne ; the two remaining stories, Problem at Pollensa Bay and The Regatta Mystery were later collected in The Regatta Mystery in 1939 in the US and in Problem at Pollensa Bay in the UK in 1991 although these were originally stories featuring Hercule Poirot when they were first published in the Strand Magazine in 1935 and 1936 respectively.

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.

The Scotsman of 17 March 1927 said, " The activities of Poirot himself cannot be taken seriously, as one takes, for example, Sherlock Holmes, The book, indeed, reads more like an exaggerated parody of popular detective fiction than a serious essay in the type.

Here is no Hercule's vein: indeed Poirot would find little worthy of his great gift of detection in these situations, where one knows from the start that everything will come delightfully right in the end.

The next morning, the children carry out their " murder " plan and rouse Poirot from his bed to investigate the " dead " body but the planners get a shock when Poirot confirms that Bridget is indeed dead.

Appointment with Death is decidedly of the lesser ranks: indeed, it comes close to being the least solid and satisfactory of all the Poirot mystery tales.

Poirot does indeed get permission for an exhumation and the body is proved to be riddled with arsenic.

* The Chocolate Box case is mentioned on the novel Peril at End House ( 1932 ) in chapter 15, when Poirot tells Commander Challenger that he indeed had failures in the past.

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.

Poirot hypothesizes that the murderer was a young man who came in a trap and killed Whalley and went away.

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.

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

Arlena went on the fatal day to meet Patrick, just as Poirot suspected.

" 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?

When she next went in there, the chambermaid returned the empty case to the drawer whose runners had been silenced with French polish, traces of which Poirot found in the room next door.

Poirot learns that Hugh's mother died when he was ten years old in a boating accident when she was out with the Admiral, and that she was previously engaged to Frobisher before he went off to India with the British Army.

When the raid occurred and the lights went out temporarily, Poirot was waiting by Cerberus and heard her put the packet in the dog's mouth – and Poirot took the opportunity to cut off a sample of cloth from her sleeve as proof.

* 1998 Black Coffee ( featuring Hercule Poirot, based on the 1930 play ' Black Coffee ')

Poirot has been portrayed on radio, on screen, for films and television, by various actors, including John Moffatt, Albert Finney, Sir Peter Ustinov, Sir Ian Holm, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina and David Suchet.

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

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

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 ".

As early as Murder on the Links, where he still largely depends on clues, Poirot mocks a rival " bloodhound " detective who focuses on the traditional trail of clues that had been established in detective fiction by the example of Sherlock Holmes: footprints, fingerprints and cigar ash.

At the time, of course, she had no idea she would be going on writing Poirot books for many decades to come.

Poirot had been forcibly retired from the Belgian police force prior to the time he met Hastings in 1916 as a refugee on the case retold in The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

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.

While Poirot is usually paid handsomely by clients who request his help, he is known to also take on cases that may not pay well simply because the mystery interests him.

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.

In " The Big Four " ( 1927 ) Poirot feigned his death and subsequent funeral in order to launch a surprise attack on the Big Four.

" She first met Poirot in the story Cards on the Table and has been bothering him ever since.

Japp is an Inspector from Scotland Yard and appears in many of the stories trying to solve the cases Poirot is working on.

In between, Poirot solves cases outside England as well, including his most famous case, Murder on the Orient Express ( 1934 ).

" Aside from Roger Ackroyd, the most critically acclaimed Poirot novels appeared from 1932 to 1942, including such acknowledged classics as Murder on the Orient Express, The ABC Murders ( 1935 ), Cards on the Table ( 1936 ), and Death on the Nile ( 1937 ).

Austin Trevor debuted the role of Poirot on screen in the 1931 British film Alibi.

Albert Finney played Poirot in 1974 in the cinematic version of Murder on the Orient Express.

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

The series, adapting several of the best-known Poirot and Marple stories, ran from 4 July 2004 through 15 May 2005, and has since been shown in repeated reruns on NHK and other networks in Japan.