His name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes ' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans ' Monsieur Poirot, a retired Belgian police officer living in London.

Christie's Poirot was a francophone Belgian.

Unlike the models mentioned above, Christie's Poirot was clearly the result of her early development of the detective in her first book, written in 1916 but not published until 1920.

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 ".

By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot " insufferable ", and by 1960 she felt that he was a " detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep ".

Yet the public loved him, and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot.

: " 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.

It was also in this period that Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof onto the public below.

In The Double Clue Poirot mentions that he was Chief of Police of Brussels, until " the Great War " ( WWI ) forced him to leave for England.

It was chosen by Poirot for its symmetry.

( This building was in fact built in 1936, decades later than Poirot fictionally moved in.

) His first case was " The Affair at the Victory Ball ", which saw Poirot enter the high society and begin his career as a private detective.

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.

Poirot thus was forced to kill the man himself as otherwise he would have continued his actions and never been officially convicted.

Poirot was buried at Styles, and his funeral was arranged by his best friend Hastings and Hastings ' daughter Judith.

Whether this was during one of Poirot ’ s numerous retirements or before she entered his employment is unknown.

In The Agatha Christie Hour, she was portrayed by British actress Angela Easterling, while in Agatha Christie's Poirot, she was portrayed by Pauline Moran.

In Agatha Christie's Poirot, Japp was portrayed by Philip Jackson.

In the film, Thirteen at Dinner ( 1985 ), adapted from Lord Edgware Dies, the role of Japp was taken by the actor David Suchet, who would later star as Poirot in the ITV adaptations.

During the same year, he voiced Poirot in the adventure game Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express.

In the 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book, Christie herself ( Dame Peggy Ashcroft ) murdered one of her fictional-turned-real characters, Poirot.

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

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.

Poirot also bears a striking resemblance to A. E. W. Mason's fictional detective — Inspector Hanaud of the French Sûreté — who, first appearing in the 1910 novel At the Villa Rose, predates the writing of the first Poirot novel by six years.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One alternative would be that having failed to grow marrows once, Poirot is determined to have another go, but this is specifically denied by Poirot himself.

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

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.

Poirot regards Hastings as a poor private detective, not particularly intelligent, yet helpful in his way of being fooled by the criminal or seeing things the way the average man would see them, and for his tendency to unknowingly " stumble " onto the truth.

Hastings is a man who is capable of great bravery and courage, facing death unflinchingly when confronted by The Big Four and possessing unwavering loyalty towards Poirot.

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.

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

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.