History Literature / HerculePoirot

* ''One, Two, Buckle My Shoe'' (1940)

* ''The Big Four'' (1927)

* AffectionateParody / {{Deconstruction}}: "The Veiled Lady" is a literary ShotForShotRemake of the Literature/SherlockHolmes story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", but with an extra TwistEnding.

* AuthorAvatar: Ariadne Oliver, famous author of a series of mysteries featuring an exotic foreign detective, is sometimes a mouthpiece for Christie's frustrations (and sometimes the vehicle for a bit of self-deprecating humour).

* BerserkButton: Does not like it when people confuse him for French. He is Belgian, and will let you know it! (Though sometimes, when he wants to charm people, he lets it go.)
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Poirot is a very polite and kindly (if vain) old man. If you murder anyone in his vicinity, he will hunt you down without mercy.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Poirot's many eccentricities are compensated by his exceptional skills as a detective.
* BusmansHoliday: Multiple times, sometimes lampshaded.
* TheButlerDidIt: Subverted.
* CatchPhrase: Poirot has "the little grey cells" and less often "order and method".
* CelibateHero: Poirot does not have a romantic relationship over the course of his literary career. He expresses a strong admiration for Countess Vera Rossakoff, but Christie does not pursue a relationship between them. Although Poirot never has a romantic/sexual relationship of any kind, he is more a CelibateHero of the "Love is a Distraction" variety than a true asexual. He typically acts gallant towards the women he meets -- much more so than, say, Literature/SherlockHolmes in similar situations -- and he often makes polite comments about their looks and/or fashion choices; Hastings even jokingly remarks in ''Curtain: Poirot's last case'' that the detective prefers showy, voluptuous redheads. It never goes beyond that, though.

* TheCorrupter: [[spoiler:Stephen Norton in ''{{Literature/Curtain}}''.]]

* DeadMansChest: "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook"

* DetectivePatsy: Poirot is far too clever to fall for this, but occasionally he despairs of Hastings.

* EagleEyeDetection
* ElectiveBrokenLanguage: Poirot admits to a friend in ''Three Act Tragedy'' that he's perfectly capable of speaking proper English if he wants to, but he chooses not to because he's found it helpful to appear as an amusing and non-threatening foreigner.
-->'''Poirot:''' It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say -- a foreigner -- he can't even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people -- instead I invite their gentle ridicule.

* FunnyForeigner: A deliberate front, as pointed out in ''Three-Act Tragedy''.
* GambitRoulette[=/=]GambitPileup: ''The Big Four'', where most of the plans (on both sides) counted on their victims seeing through one layer of deception but not one another. Achille Poirot's role also counts.

* GreatDetective

* HaveAGayOldTime: One of the novels involving Poirot is called ''Dumb Witness'', with "dumb" as in "mute".

* TheHeroDies: Christie wrote ''Curtain: Poirot's Last Case'' during World War II, but did not allow it to be published until 1975 (the last of her books to be published in her lifetime). In the book, [[spoiler:Poirot stops taking his heart medication to bring about his own death, after killing a man who had manipulated others into committing several murders.]]
* IconicItem: Poirot's turnip pocket watch.

* InsistentTerminology: Poirot is '''Belgian''', not '''French'''.
* InspectorLestrade: Inspector Japp.
* InsufferableGenius: Sometimes comes off as this.
* IronicName: Poirot is physically as far as you can get from a "Hercule".
* ItsAllMyFault: Poirot feels like he's responsible for ''not'' preventing a murder, even when it's ridiculously not his fault. He even blames himself for the murder if he feels he can't solve it.

* ItsPronouncedTropay: If someone mispronounces his name, like "Poy-roat", he'll be quick to correct them. A second time, he'll just bitterly sigh or grumble and leave well enough alone.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Poirot often comes off as an arrogant, vain egotist, but he's got a good, kind heart underneath it all.

* LeaveBehindAPistol: Poirot has allowed this in a few stories, ''Dead Man's Folly'' and ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile''.

* LoveTriangle: "Triangle At Rhodes".

* TheMatchmaker: It's astounding how many relationships and marriages were influenced by the fastidious hand of Monsieur Poirot.

* MistakenNationality: He is ''Belgian'', not French. It annoys him, although Hercule Poirot does not forget his dignity so far as to call it a BerserkButton.

* MysteryMagnet: Lampshaded in "Dead Man's Mirror" when Major Riddle remarks that with Poirot on the scene, any apparent suicide ''would'' be murder.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Poirot frequently plays the dotty old man to disarm suspects, making them more vulnerable to his questioning. He also uses his accent to this purpose, as he explains in ''Three-Act Tragedy'':
-->''"It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say - a foreigner - he can't even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people - instead, I invite their gentle ridicule. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, 'A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.' That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard."''

* PluckyComicRelief: Ariadne Oliver, Christie's AuthorAvatar, who tends to lighten the atmosphere of any scene she's in.

* PrettyLittleHeadshots: Someone is killed by this method in Poirot's last case, ''{{Literature/Curtain}}''. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a major ChekhovsGun.]]

* PutOnABus: After Christie realized Poirot didn't really need a Watson-type character, she quickly married off Captain Hastings and had him move to Argentina (although he periodically returned for more adventures with Poirot).
* RaisedCatholic[=/=]ChristianityIsCatholic: WordOfGod states that Poirot's religion is Roman Catholicism.
* SarcasticDevotee: Captain Hastings, at times. Hastings relates a story where (in a shout out to Literature/SherlockHolmes) Poirot solved a mystery involving a box of chocolates perfectly, except for having overlooked a vital clue that would have told him very clearly who the murderer was, and thus accused someone who was completely innocent (but who was quickly exonerated once the truth was known). After that affair, Poirot tells Hastings that if he ever acts too conceited, he should use the words "chocolate box" to bring him down a peg. Poirot isn't amused when Hastings uses the code words mere seconds later.

* [[ShoutOut/ToShakespeare Shout-Out: To Shakespeare]]: ''Taken at the Flood'' (and, of course, its US title ''[[MarketBasedTitle There Is a Tide...]]'') is a reference to Marcus Brutus' line from Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'': "''There is a tide'' in the affairs of men / Which, ''taken at the flood'', leads on to fortune" (IV, iii).

* SuperOCD: Some books hinted at this, but of course, that's what makes him a good detective.
** Poirot's insistence on symmetry and neatness, to the point of rearranging ornaments on a stranger's masterpiece, in one case directly leads him to the solution.
** He prefers to keep a bank balance of 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence.
** Poirot's SuperOCD helps solve the mystery of a book he wasn't even in (''Towards Zero''), when his friend Superintendent Battle looks at something asymmetric and thinks about how much that would have bugged Poirot.

* ThirdPersonPerson: Often crosses with a pat-my-own back ButHeSoundsHandsome.
* ThrillerOnTheExpress: ''The Mystery of the Blue Train''.

* WeWouldHaveToldYouBut: He pulls this constantly. Hastings finds this as intensely irritating as the readers do.

* TheHeroDies: Though having penned this adventure, Christie set it aside for thirty years while she continued to turn them out.

[[folder:Other examples]]

* HeKnowsTooMuch: The surest way for an Agatha Christie character to sign his own death warrant is by attempting to blackmail a killer. [[spoiler:Amberiotis of ''One, Two, Buckle My Shoe'']] learned this the hard way. Also goes for anyone who didn't know that they knew anything significant (such as [[spoiler:Celia from ''Hickory Dickory Dock'']]), or who didn't know the whole story but knew something vital (like [[spoiler:Miss Johnson from ''Murder in Mesopotamia'']]). Basically, if you're in an Agatha Christie novel, you'd better hope and pray that you either don't have a major part, don't find anything out, aren't confided to by anyone; or if you do find something out, you know how to ''keep your mouth shut''.

* BadassMoustache: Agatha Christie liked the 1974 adaptation of Literature/MurderOnTheOrientExpress, and had but a single complaint: Albert Finney's mustache wasn't magnificent enough! [[spoiler: Subverted in ''Literature/TheBigFour'' and ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'', in which Poirot has shaved his mustache to pretend to be someone else.]]

* BadassMoustache: Agatha Christie liked the 1974 adaptation of Literature/MurderOnTheOrientExpress, and had but a single complaint: Albert Finney's mustache wasn't magnificent enough!

* EurkaMoment: Poirot will often say such things as "Ah, the light shines on the case" when he discovers a vital clue that leads to his solving the case.

* LeaveBehindAPistol: Poirot has allowed this in a few stories, ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile''.

* LeaveBehindAPistol: Poirot has allowed this in a few stories, such as ''Dead Man's Folly'' and ''Literature/DeathOnTheHile''.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Boyntons in ''Appointment with Death'' and the Lees in ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas''. The Abernethies in ''Funerals are Fatal'' and the Arundells in ''Dumb Witness''.

* ''Mrs. [=McGinty=]'s Dead'' (1952)

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Boyntons in ''Appointment with Death'' and the Lees in ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas''. The Abernethies in ''Funerals are Fatal'' and the Arundells in ''Poirot Loses A Client''.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Boyntons in ''Appointment with Death'' and the Lees in ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas''.

[[caption-width-right:300:''[[GratuitousFrench Bon soir, mon ami.]]'']]

** In several stories, characters complain that investigating a real life case is never as neat as a detective story.

* AssholeVictim: ''Appointment with Death'', ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'', and many others described on their individual pages (some of which turn out to be subversions).

* ''Murder in Mesopotamia'' (1936)

* ''Literature/TheMysteryoftheBlueTrain'' (1928)

* ''The Mystery of the Blue Train'' (1928)