History Literature / HerculePoirot

* ThirdPersonPerson: Poirot, when announcing his opinions, boasting about his accomplishments, or taking the SummationGathering step-by-step through his deductions, often refers to himself as Poirot or Hercule Poirot. Often overlaps with ButHeSoundsHandsome patting himself on the back, asking rhetorical questions. They expected the great Hercule Poirot to be taken in so easily? Surely not!

* StrictlyFormula: Every Poirot novel has a character at some point say/think 'The man's a mountebank,' 'The old man's gaga, of course,' or 'Well, he's just a foreigner,' only to be promptly proven wrong.
* TakingTheHeat: Done numerous times to provide red herrings.

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

** Two coincidental, unrelated cases in ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'': [[spoiler: among the guests who come to visit elderly Simeon Lee for the holidays are Stephen Farr, son of Lee's old business partner in South Africa whom he betrayed; and Pilar Estravados, Lee's granddaughter from Spain, on her first visit to England as civil war breaks out in Spain. Simeon is murdered, but both impostors end up being {{Red Herring}}s. A telegraph reveals that the real Stephen Farr is dead -- Stephen's real name is Stephen Grant, a friend of the real Farr but also, as he explains, the illegitimate son of Lee himself, who came to England intending to confront his father not only for what he did to the Grants but for his own abandonment. Pilar, meanwhile, is actually Conchita Lopez, the real Pilar's maid, traveling with Pilar through wartorn Spain when the latter was killed by a bomb. Conchita seized on the opportunity to masquerade as her mistress, enjoying a brief respite in a wealthy home far from the war -- only to find herself trapped by her own deceit, unable to reveal the truth without making herself even more of a suspect in the murder. In the end, both are cleared of suspicion, and Stephen asks Conchita to come back with him to South Africa so that the two of them can be married.]]

* LateArrivalSpoiler: Christie's novels occasionally revealed the solutions of previous works, a habit which vexed her publishers. For instance, in ''Literature/CardsOnTheTable'', Poirot makes a reference to the solution to ''Murder on the Orient Express''. The reference is very subtle, but enough to spoil it for someone who has not yet read that novel. Even worse, in ''Dumb Witness'', Poirot casually mentions the names of the guilty parties from ''four'' previous novels in a single sentence (major spoilers, these are the names of the killers): [[spoiler:[[Literature/TheMysteriousAffairAtStyles Evelyn Howard]], [[Literature/DeathInTheClouds Norman Gale]], [[Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd Doctor Shepard]], and [[Literature/MurderOnTheBlueTrain Major Nighton]]]].

Fastidiously neat, we'd today diagnose him with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive_compulsive_personality_disorder OCPD]].

** ''Literature/FiveLittlePigs'' offers a posthumous version, in which a young heiress hires Poirot to prove her mother -- Caroline Crale, hanged [[RevisitingTheColdCase sixteen years before the story began]] -- was innocent of the murder of her husband, acclaimed artist Amyas Crale. Poirot has to work backwards, comparing the [[RashomonStyle differing accounts]] of five witnesses who were at the house the day of the murder.

* ImpersonationExclusiveCharacter: Christie was fond of the trope, which appears in various forms in ''Literature/AfterTheFuneral'', ''Literature/CatAmongThePigeons'', ''Literature/TheClocks'', ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'', ''Literature/MurderInMesopotamia'', and ''Literature/AMurderIsAnnounced''.

* ImpersonationExclusiveCharacter: Christie was fond of the trope, which appears in various forms in ''Literature/AfterTheFuneral'', ''Literature/CatAmongThePigeons'', ''Literature/TheClocks'', ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'', and ''Literature/MurderInMesopotamia''.

* ImpersonationExclusiveCharacter: Two coincidental, unrelated cases in ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'': [[spoiler: among the guests who come to visit elderly Simeon Lee for the holidays are Stephen Farr, son of Lee's old business partner in South Africa, and Pilar Estravados, Lee's granddaughter from Spain, on her first visit to England as civil war breaks out in Spain. Simeon is murdered, but both impostors end up being {{Red Herring}}s. A telegraph reveals that the real Stephen Farr is dead -- Stephen's real name is Stephen Grant, a friend of the real Farr but also, as he explains, the illegitimate son of Lee himself, who came to England intending to confront his father not only for what he did to the Grants but for his own abandonment. Pilar, meanwhile, is actually Conchita Lopez, the real Pilar's maid, traveling with Pilar through wartorn Spain. When the latter was killed by a bomb, Conchita seized on the opportunity to masquerade as her mistress, enjoying a brief respite in a wealthy home far from the war, only to find herself trapped by her own deceit, unable to reveal the truth without making herself even more of a suspect in the murder. In the end, both are cleared of suspicion, and Stephen asks Conchita to come back with him to South Africa so that the two of them can be married.]]

* HeroismWontPayTheBills: Poirot makes his money being an insurance investigator. Solving mysteries doesn't pay the bills, you know.

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

* LeaveBehindAPistol: Poirot has allowed a few murderers to take what he sees as the 'honourable' way out in a few stories, such as [[spoiler:''Dead Man's Folly'' and ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile''. A subversion in both cases, as the killer already has the pistol, but Poirot believes the remorseful or despairing killer will use the pistol to give their co-conspirator an easy death. In both cases, he's proven correct.]].

* LateArrivalSpoiler: Christie's novels occasionally revealed the solutions of previous works, a habit which vexed her publishers. For instance, in ''Literature/CardsOnTheTable'', Poirot makes a reference to the solution to ''Murder on the Orient Express''. The reference is very subtle, but enough to spoil it for someone who has not yet read that novel. Even worse, in ''Dumb Witness'', Poirot casually mentions the names of the guilty parties from ''four'' previous novels in a single sentence. Seriously spoilers, these are the names [[spoiler:(Evelyn Howard, Norman Gale, Doctor Shepard, and Major Nighton)]].
%%* LeaveBehindAPistol: Poirot has allowed this in a few stories, ''Dead Man's Folly'' and ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile''.

** ''Literature/FiveLittlePigs'' offers a posthumous version, with Poirot hired by the now grown-up daughter of Carolyn Crale to clear her mother, hanged [[RevisitingTheColdCase sixteen years before the story began]], of the murder of her father, acclaimed artist Amyas Crale. Poirot has to work backwards, comparing the [[RashomonStyle differing accounts]] of five witnesses who were at the house the day of the murder.

** Poirot himself is suspected of murdering Madame Giselle in ''Literature/DeathInTheClouds'' after the real killer plants a [[BlowGun poison blow pipe]], of all things, beside his seat.
** In ''Mrs. [=McGinty=]'s Dead'', Poirot works to clear the name of a man accused of murdering the titular victim before he's hanged, as a favour to the local superintendent who doesn't feel right about the verdict, in spite of the evidence he himself collected.
** ''Five Little Pigs'' offers a postmortem version, where the daughter of Carolyn Crale, convicted of murdering her artist husband Amyas [[RevisitingTheColdCase sixteen years before the story began]], hires Poirot to prove her mother's innocence. Poirot has to work backwards, comparing the [[RashomonStyle differing accounts]] of five witnesses who were at the house the day of the murder.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: There is, of course, no one better than Hercule Poirot. Not even his brother Achille. [[spoiler: Who doesn't exist.]] Poirot often swoops in as the AlwaysSomeoneBetter to various other sleuths, though in something of a subversion he generally gives great credit to the intelligence, diligence, and capability to the police force (as a former detective in the Belgian police himself) and is quick to correct the common British notion of the policeman as being stolid and slightly stupid.

* CatchPhrase: OncePerEpisode, Poirot will invoked his "little grey cells". [[BorrowedCatchphase If not, someone else will]].

* ''Dumb Witness'' (1937)

* 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.
* GenteelInterbellumSetting: The novels began in 1920 and lasted till 1975. A majority of them have this setting in mind, with their upper-class casts and manor house backdrops. So exemplary of the era was Christie that the trope was originally named "Christie Time".

** ''Five Little Pigs'' offers a postmortem version, where the daughter of Carolyn Crale, convicted of murdering her husband Amyas sixteen years before the story began, hires Poirot to prove her mother's innocence. Poirot has to work backwards, comparing the [[RashomonStyle differing accounts]] of the day of the murder from five witnesses who were at the house the day of the murder.
* ComicBookTime: Poirot is supposedly old and retired in the early 1920s, but is still detecting over forty years later, as ''Third Girl'' is explicitly set in sixties "swinging London".

%%* DeathInTheClouds: The 1935 novel of that title is the {{Trope Namer|s}}.

* BrainFever: In ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'', Jack Renauld collapses with fever, which Hercule Poirot attributes to the shock of being disowned on top of ongoing mental strain following the death of his father. By the time of ''The Big Four'', however, Agatha has a doctor dismiss brain fever as an invention of writers.

[[folder: Tropes featured in this series]]

'''Poirot''': "[[IResembleThatRemark I hardly like that remark.]]"\\
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Subverted, since of course there is no one better than Hercule Poirot. Not even his brother Achille. [[spoiler: Who doesn't exist.]]

* 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 ''The Big Four'' and ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'', in which Poirot has shaved his mustache to pretend to be someone else.]]

* BluffingTheAuthorities: In the story ''The Stymphalian Birds'', an English diplomat accidentally kills a young woman's jealous husband while on vacation in Central Europe. The woman's mother knows how things happen around there and is certain that everything can be smoothed over with enough bribery, including a police officer who came by the hotel. [[spoiler:However, it's all a scam (including the "death" of the husband, who was in fact the mother in disguise); banking on the fact that the diplomat didn't speak the language, the women had called the cop about missing jewelry.

%%* InspectorLestrade: Inspector Japp.

[[/folder]]

* AdaptationDecay: In-universe in ''Mrs [=McGinty=]'s Dead'', Adriane Oliver works on a theatre adaptation of her book, and complains that the characters are completely changed. (Ironically, in real life, Agatha Christie's main complaint about early stage adaptations of her plays was that they stuck ''too closely'' to the books, as she felt that a murder mystery should surprise people.)

* AdaptationDecay: In ''Mrs [=McGinty=]'s Dead'', Adriane Oliver works on a theatre adaptation of her book, and complains that the characters are completely changed. (Ironically, in real life, Agatha Christie's main complaint about early stage adaptations of her plays was that they stuck ''too closely'' to the books, as she felt that a murder mystery should surprise people.)
* AlwaysMurder: Most of the stories with occasional aversions. Lampshaded in Dead Man's Mirror:
->'''Riddle''': "As you are on the scene, it probably would be murder!"\\
For a moment Poirot smiled.
->'''Poirot''': "[[IResembleThatRemark I hardly like that remark.]]"\\

* BluffingTheAuthorities: In the story ''The Stymphalian Birds'', an English diplomat accidentally kills a young woman's jealous husband while on vacation in Central Europe. The woman's mother knows how things happen around there and is certain that everything can be smoothed over with enough bribery, including a police officer who came by the hotel. However, it's all a scam (including the husband's "death", who was played by the mother): banking on the fact that the diplomat didn't speak the language, she had called the cop about missing jewelry.
* BookEnds: The novel ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'' is this ''for the whole Poirot cycle'' - the plot takes place in the same location as ''Literature/TheMysteriousAffairAtStyles'', the first book in the cycle.
%%* BrainFever: in ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks''. Interestingly, in ''The Big Four'', a doctor dismisses brain fever as an invention of writers.

** ''Mrs. [=McGinty=]'s Dead'' involves clearing the name of a man accused of murdering the titular victim before he's executed.
** ''Five Little Pigs'' offers a postmortem version.

* DemotedToExtra: As Christie's dislike towards Poirot increases, his importance in the cases he solved, begun to diminish as well. Many of Poirot's later novels actually feature very little of the Belgian detective, where he would have minimal involvement in the plot and only served to InfoDump the solution of the mystery during the denouement. Some examples include ''Cat Among the Pigeons'', where Poirot only shows up in the last third of the books, and ''The Clocks'', where he barely exists outside the reveal.

* FinallyFoundTheBody: The resolution of [[spoiler:''Dead Man's Folly'']].

* GenteelInterbellumSetting: The novels began in 1920 and lasted till 1975. A majority of them have this setting in mind.

** In ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'', one of the supporting characters is from Spain, and frequently wonders why the English don't seem to be "gay"; in this case, she is using the word "gay" in its old meaning of "happy".

* LongRunners: Fifty-five years' worth of novels is not so bad.

* MedicationTampering: In ''Dumb Witness'', the victim’s liver pills are doctored with phosphorus. The hint is given by the ‘aura’ seen around the woman: the phosphoresence of her breath.

* PutOnABus: Hastings would make his last regular appearance in ''Dumb Witness''. He would not return again [[TheBusCameBack until]] ''Literature/{{Curtain}}''.

* ShoutOut: 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).

*** And on a related note, according to the obituary on the August 6, 1975 edition of ''The New York Times'', Poirot misquotes Shakespeare in the play ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', whose actual line is spoken by Prince Malcolm to his father Duncan regarding the execution of the thane of Cawdor [[spoiler:(and the same line holds true of the great Belgian detective)]]: "Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it" (I, iv).
* SocietyMarchesOn: As the novels went on, from the 50s and into the 60s Poriot becomes increasingly disillusioned with the growing pop culture and perceived coarseness of the younger generation.

* StrictlyFormula: Every Poirot novel has a character at some point say/think 'The man's a mountebank' and is promptly proved wrong.

* ThemeNaming: Hercule's [[spoiler: likely fictional]] brother is named "Achille".

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

Many different actors have played Poirot on screen. Creator/PeterUstinov played him five times in the 1970s and 1980s, Creator/AlbertFinney was nominated for an Oscar for playing him in 1974, but nowadays the definitive portrayal is believed to be Creator/DavidSuchet's ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' (amusingly, he first played Inspector Japp in the 1985 adaptation of ''Literature/LordEdgwareDies''). Creator/KennethBranagh introduced his own interpretation [[Film/MurderOnTheOrientExpress2017 in 2017]] and intends to continue his own cinematic run as the Belgian. On television, Creator/JohnMalkovich took on the role for the Creator/{{BBC}} in 2018, playing a ''bearded'' Poirot in an adaptation of ''The ABC Murders''.