History Literature / HerculePoirot

* ''The Hollow'' (1946)

* Black Coffee (1998) (Novelisation by Charles Osborne of Christie's original 1930 stage play)

* ''{{Literature/BlackCoffee}}'' (1998) (Novelisation by Charles Osborne of Christie's original 1930 stage play)

* Creator/PeterUstinov played Poirot five times between 1978 and 1988 (.

-->'''Poirot''' (confronting the killer, [[spoiler:Norman Gale]]): We found your finger prints on the bottle.
-->'''[[spoiler:Gale]]''': You lie! I wore... (trails off, realizing what he just said)

* 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/TheMysteryOfTheBlueTrain Major Nighton]]]].

Mystery writer Creator/SophieHannah was officially licensed by the Christie estate to write Poirot novels and has written three since 2014.

* ''Hickory Dickory Dock'' (1955)

[[folder:Licensed novels by Creator/SophieHannah]]

* ''{{Literature/Curtain}}'' (1975)[[/index]]
* ''The Monogram Murders'' (2014), (an officially licensed novel by Creator/SophieHannah)
* ''Closed Casket'' (2016), (the second officially licensed novel by Hannah)
* ''The Mystery of Three Quarters'' (2018), (the third novel by Hannah)

* ChemicallyInducedInsanity: The Cretan Bull (part of ''The Labours of Hercules''): the "bull" in this case is a huge and energetic young man named Hugh who is suffering from hallucinations and sometimes wakes up with bloodied hands and the news that animals have been found butchered nearby. As his family has a history of congenital madness, he's afraid of going off the deep end and resolves to commit suicide when he thinks he's close to harming his fiancé. [[spoiler:He's perfectly sound in mind, the hallucinations being produced by drugs in his shaving cream. The actual madman is his father- or rather, his mother's husband, who does suffer from the family insanity and resolved to drive Hugh to suicide in revenge, having murdered his wife years ago. He shoots himself once found out.]]

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

* WhatAnIdiot: Several stories have the twist ending that the apparent victim or bystander who first called Poirot in actually committed the crime, and wanted Poirot there so the police would assume if he couldn't solve it, no-one could. This despite the fact that Poirot's cases get published in-universe so they should know that ''this never works''.

* DistractedByTheSexy: Beautiful women tend to have this effect on Hastings; his head is easily turned by a pretty face, he becomes smitten by a seemingly innocent beauty almost OneAnEpisode, and [[LoveMakesYouDumb love makes him very dull-witted indeed]] (such as leaving a female suspect alone among critical evidence in ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'').

* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: Common throughout the series, with many a country squire, Indian colonel, and London man-about-town as major characters, with perhaps none so quintessential as Poirot's friend and [[TheWatson Watson]] Captain Arthur Hastings. Hastings' Britishness is often a source of insight into conventional Britisher's way of thinking for Poirot -- in knowing Hastings' opinion, Poirot often knows what a suspect ''wants him to think'', regardless of whether or not it's true. Christie often uses Poirot's outsider perspective to comment on some of the absurdities of English life, frequently by virtue of how Hastings' assumptions about other English gentlemen and women of his class -- upright, forthright, fair-minded ''pukka sahibs'' and flowers of English womanhood all -- are often naive, as hypocrisy and duplicity abound even among some of Hastings' supposed friends.

** ''The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'', whose controversial solution ([[spoiler:[[NarratorAllAlong The narrator]] and [[TheWatson Watson]] of the book turns out to be the murderer]]) not only made Christie a household name, but completely changed the course of detective fiction.

* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: Common throughout the series, with many a country squire, Indian colonel, and London man-about-town as major characters, with perhaps none so quintessential as Poirot's friend and [[TheWatson Watson]] Captain Arthur Hastings. Hastings' Britishness is often a source of insight into conventional Britisher's way of thinking for Poirot -- in knowing Hastings' opinion, Poirot often knows what a suspect ''wants him to think'', regardless of whether or not it's true. Christie often uses Poirot's outsider perspective to comment on some of the absurdities of English life, frequently by virtue of how Hastings' assumptions about other English gentlemen and women of his class -- upright, forthright, fair-minded, ''pukka sahibs'' and flowers of English womanhood -- are often naive, as hypocrisy and duplicity abound even among some of Hastings' supposed friends.

%%* TheDutifulSon: Richard Abernathie, whose funeral is the catalyst for the events in ''After the Funeral''.

* HaveAGayOldTime:
** "Gay" and "queer" are frequently used in their old meanings of "happy" and "peculiar". 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".
** One of the novels involving Poirot is called ''Dumb Witness'', with "dumb" as in "mute". (Actually, that is still the primary meaning of 'dumb' in British English.)

* IdiotBall: Beautiful women tend to have this effect on Hastings (such as leaving one alone among critical evidence in ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks''...)

* MarketBasedTitle: Several of the novels had their titles changed for their US editions, for cultural reasons (US readers wouldn't know what a mews was, so the collection ''Murder in the Mews'' was titled ''Dead Man's Mirror'' after a different story in the collection), or to avoid consumer confusion (''Murder on the Orient Express'' was changed to ''Murder in the Calais Coach'' because a mystery novel by the title of ''Orient Express''[[note]]Itself a market-based title for ''Stamboul Train''[[/note]] had come out in the US that same year). The editions currently in print have restored the original British titles.

** ''Literature/MurderOnTheOrientExpress'' is a ClosedCircle mystery, with the famous train stranded by a snowstorm in the mountains outside Belgrade, where every passenger is a suspect in the murder of a wealthy American. No one can come or go, and the victim is revealed to be [[WhoMurderedTheAsshole a kidnapper and murder whom any one of them might have wished dead]].

* TwistEnding: As Creator/AgathaChristie is widely considered one of the masters of the Twist Ending, this is to be expected; several of the Poirot novels are even claimed to have invented some notable twist endings.

* TheWatson: Deconstructed in certain books. Poirot's more episodic sidekicks start out eager to see justice done, but are usually ill-prepared for just how diabolical or tragic the perpetrators of the crimes they are helping to solve are.

** ''The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'', whose controversial solution not only made Christie a household name, but which completely changed the course of detective fiction.

Many different actors have played Poirot on screen.
----
* Creator/PeterUstinov played Poirot five times in the 1970s and 1980s.

* Creator/KennethBranagh started his own cinematic interpretation:

* ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' by ITV (1989-2013). Creator/DavidSuchet's portrayal of Poirot is considered as the definitive one (amusingly, he first played Inspector Japp in the 1985 adaptation of ''Literature/LordEdgwareDies'').

* Creator/PeterUstinov played Poirot five times in the 1970s and 1980s.[[index]]

* ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' by ITV (1989-2013). Creator/DavidSuchet's portrayal of Poirot is considered as the definitive one (amusingly, he first played Inspector Japp in the 1985 adaptation of ''Literature/LordEdgwareDies'').[[/index]]
* Creator/KennethBranagh started his own cinematic interpretation:[[index]]
** ''Film/{{Murder on the Orient Express|2017}}'' (2017)
** ''Film/{{Death on the Nile|2020}}'' (2020)
* '' Series/TheABCMurders'' (2018). Creator/JohnMalkovich took on the role for the Creator/{{BBC}} in 2018, playing a ''bearded'' Poirot.

* ''Film/{{Murder on the Orient Express|1974}}''. Earned Creator/AlbertFinney an Oscar nomination.
* ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' by ITV. Creator/DavidSuchet's portrayal of Poirot is considered as the definitive one (amusingly, he first played Inspector Japp in the 1985 adaptation of ''Literature/LordEdgwareDies''[[/index]]
* Creator/KennethBranagh started his own cinematic interpretation in 2017:[[index]]

* ''{{Literature/Curtain}}'' (1975)

[[/index]]

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 with ''Film/{{Murder on the Orient Express|2017}}'' in 2017 and followed upon its success with ''Film/{{Death on the Nile|2020}}'' in 2020. On television, Creator/JohnMalkovich took on the role for the Creator/{{BBC}} in 2018, playing a ''bearded'' Poirot in [[Series/TheABCMurders an adaptation]] of ''Literature/TheABCMurders''.

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 [[Series/TheABCMurders an adaptation]] of ''Literature/TheABCMurders''.