History Literature / HerculePoirot

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* Literature/HerculePoirot
[[/index]]

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

[[quoteright:300:[[Series/{{Poirot}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/817f2409971011d081d35c0fe11e19e1.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''[[GratuitousFrench Bonsoir, mon ami.]]''[[note]]Creator/DavidSuchet in his definitive portrayal of the detective.[[/note]]]]

->''There are moments when I have felt: Why-Why-Why did I ever invent this detestable, bombastic, tiresome little creature? ...Eternally straightening things, eternally boasting, eternally twirling his moustaches and tilting his egg-shaped head... I point out that by a few strokes of the pen... I could destroy him utterly. He replies, grandiloquently: "Impossible to get rid of Poirot like that! He is much too clever." ''
-->-- '''Creator/AgathaChristie'''

The star of thirty-three books and fifty-six short stories by Creator/AgathaChristie, Hercule Poirot is one of the most famous fictional detectives in the world. Rightly so, he would say, being also one of the most conceited. His [[LongRunners curiously elongated career]] lasted from 1916 to 1975, although he was at retirement age when it began. This would make him at least 110 when it ended.[[note]]A character in ''Curtain'' mentions that the events of the first story happened "a mere twenty years ago", but the book had been written during the War and not updated accordingly to give a more realistic date.[[/note]]

Originally a Belgian police detective, he became a refugee when UsefulNotes/WorldWarI broke out and ended up in the tiny English village of Styles St. Mary. Naturally, while he was there, someone was murdered. It was, Poirot later admitted, quite a common occurrence around him. Solving ''The Mysterious Affair at Styles'' revitalized him, however, and he embarked on a career as a private detective.

Being fastidiously neat, he is often wrongly "diagnosed" as [[SuperOCD OCD or OCPD]].

Notable associates of his include: Captain Arthur Hastings, war veteran, secretary and later Argentinian farmer; Ariadne Oliver, irritatingly popular mystery novelist; the Countess Vera Rossakoff, possibly an aristocratic Russian refugee, most definitely a talented conwoman; Miss Felicity Lemon, a most efficient secretary; and of course any number of solid, even stolid, English policemen who good-naturedly allow him to take over their crime scenes. After all, Mr Parrot's only a FunnyForeigner. What harm could it do?

Mystery writer Creator/SophieHannah was officially licensed by the Christie estate to write Poirot novels. She has written four of them since 2014.
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[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Novels in this series]]

* ''Literature/TheMysteriousAffairAtStyles'' (1920)
* ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'' (1923)
* ''Literature/PoirotInvestigates'' (1924)(short story collection)
* ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd'' (1926)
* ''Literature/TheBigFour'' (1927)
* ''Literature/TheMysteryOfTheBlueTrain'' (1928)
* ''Theatre/BlackCoffee'' (1930) -- original Christie stage play, received a licensed novelization by Charles Osborne in 1998
* ''Literature/PerilAtEndHouse'' (1932)
* ''Literature/LordEdgwareDies'' (1933)
* ''Literature/MurderOnTheOrientExpress'' (1934)
* ''Literature/ThreeActTragedy'' (1935)
* ''Literature/DeathInTheClouds'' (1935)
* ''Literature/TheABCMurders'' (1936)
* ''Literature/MurderInMesopotamia'' (1936)
* ''Literature/CardsOnTheTable'' (1936)
* ''Literature/DumbWitness'' (1937)
* ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'' (1937)
* ''Literature/MurderInTheMews'' (1937)
* ''Literature/AppointmentWithDeath'' (1938)
* ''Literature/HerculePoirotsChristmas'' (1938)
* ''Literature/SadCypress'' (1940)
* ''Literature/OneTwoBuckleMyShoe'' (1940)
* ''Literature/EvilUnderTheSun'' (1941)
* ''Literature/FiveLittlePigs'' (1942)
* ''Literature/TheHollow'' (1946)
* ''Literature/TheLaboursOfHercules'' (1947)(short story collection)
* ''Literature/TakenAtTheFlood'' (1948)
* ''Literature/MrsMcGintysDead'' (1952)
* ''Literature/AfterTheFuneral'' (1953)
* ''Literature/HickoryDickoryDock'' (1955)
* ''Literature/DeadMansFolly'' (1956)
* ''Literature/CatAmongThePigeons'' (1959)
* ''Literature/TheClocks'' (1963)
* ''Literature/ThirdGirl'' (1966)
* ''Literature/HalloweenParty'' (1969)
* ''Literature/ElephantsCanRemember'' (1972)
* ''{{Literature/Curtain}}'' (1975)
[[/index]][[/folder]]

[[folder:Licensed novels by Sophie Hannah]]
* ''The Monogram Murders'' (2014)
* ''Closed Casket'' (2016)
* ''The Mystery of Three Quarters'' (2018)
* ''The Killings at Kingfisher Hill'' (2020)
[[/folder]]


[[folder:Screen Adaptations:]]

* ''The Alphabet Murders'' (1965) An early DenserAndWackier adaptation of ''The ABC Murders'' with Tony Randall as Poirot.
[[index]]
* ''Film/{{Murder on the Orient Express|1974}}'' (1974). Earned Creator/AlbertFinney an Oscar nomination.
[[/index]]
* Creator/PeterUstinov played Poirot six times between 1978 and 1988.
[[index]]
** ''Film/{{Death on the Nile|1978}}'' (1978)
** ''Evil Under the Sun'' (1982)
** ''Thirteen at Dinner'' (1985)
** ''Dead Man's Folly'' (1986)
** ''Murder in Three Acts'' (1986)
** ''Appointment with Death'' (1988)
* ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' by ITV (1989-2013). Creator/DavidSuchet's portrayal of Poirot is considered as the definitive one, to the point of deserving to be this page's picture. Amusingly, he first played Inspector Japp in the 1985 adaptation of ''Literature/LordEdgwareDies''.
[[/index]]
* ''Murder on the Orient Express'', 2001 TV film starring Creator/AlfredMolina as Poirot.
* Creator/KennethBranagh started his own cinematic interpretation, [[invoked]][[DirectedByCastMember directing the films and starring]] as Poirot:
[[index]]
** ''Film/{{Murder on the Orient Express|2017}}'' (2017)
** ''Film/{{Death on the Nile|2022}}'' (2022)
* '' Series/TheABCMurders'' (2018). Creator/JohnMalkovich took on the role for the Creator/{{BBC}} in 2018, playing a ''bearded'' Poirot.
[[/index]][[/folder]]
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!!Tropes featured in this series include:
* AdaptationDecay: In-universe in ''Mrs [=McGinty=]'s Dead'', Ariadne 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.]]"
* 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 to overshadow various other sleuths, though in something of a subversion he generally gives great credit to the intelligence, diligence, and capability of the police force (as a former detective in the Belgian police himself), quick to correct the common British notion of the average policeman as being stolid and slightly stupid.
* AnachronicOrder: The novels take place in more or less random order. The fourth novel takes place after Poirot's retirement, while the novel in which Poirot decides to retire was written much later. The final book [[spoiler:(in which Poirot dies)]] was actually written more than thirty years before it was published, so that Christie could give the series a definitive end even if something happened to her in WWII.
* AnimalMotifs: Poirot's fastidious nature, his clever scheming, love of personal comfort, perception of fine details, and green eyes have all led him to be compared to a cat, often by Hastings.
%%* BigScrewedUpFamily:
%%** The Boyntons in ''Appointment with Death''
%%** The Lees in ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas''
%%** The Abernethies in ''After the Funeral''
%%** The Arundells in ''Dumb Witness''
* 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.]]
* 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'', 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, Christie has a doctor dismiss brain fever as an invention of writers.
* BrotherSisterTeam: Charles and Theresa Arundell from ''Dumb Witness'' frequently scheme to squeeze money out from their aunt. Exemplified in the TV adaptation, which AdaptedOut Theresa's fiance, leaving the two to work together more often.
* BusmansHoliday: Multiple times, sometimes lampshaded. For instance, ''Murder on the Orient Express'', when he finds himself involved in a murder mystery while traveling home from solving another (and ''to'' another).
%%* TheButlerDidIt: Subverted.
* CassandraTruth: There are several stories/novels where Poirot attempts to dissuade someone from following their chosen course of actions, telling them that it'll only end badly for them even if they manage to achieve their goals. His warnings are not listened to, and the person is duly caught in the end.
* CatchPhrase: Poirot's "little grey cells" and well-known love of "order and method" are invoked OncePerEpisode, if not by Poirot himself then [[BorrowedCatchphrase by someone else]].
* ChemicallyInducedInsanity: The Cretan Bull (part of ''The Labours of Hercules''): the "bull" in this case is a huge and energetic young man named Hugh Chandler 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, Admiral Chandler- or rather, his mother's husband, who does suffer from the family insanity. As it turns out, Hugh is actually the product of an affair between Mrs. Chandler and a close family friend (it's implied that the lady in question sensed that her husband-to-be was beginning to go insane and sought refuge in her lover's arms, as she couldn't break the engagement). After the admiral found out, he murdered his wife, then resolved to drive Hugh to suicide in revenge. He shoots himself once found out.]]
* ChristmasEpisode: The novel ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'' and the short story "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (a.k.a. The Theft of the Royal Ruby)".
* ClearMyName: Poirot 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.
* ClearTheirName:
** In ''Literature/MrsMcGintysDead'', 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.
** ''Literature/FiveLittlePigs'' offers a posthumous version, in which a young heiress hires Poirot to prove her mother -- Caroline Crale, who died in prison [[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.
* 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 [[TheSixties Swinging '60s London]].
* DarkerAndEdgier: Christie herself saw "Hercule Poirot's Christmas" as this. She dedicated it to her brother-in-law, who was a fan of her work but had complained that the murders were too clean. She said she hoped that the brutal, bloody murder in this one would please him.
%%* DeadMansChest: "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook"
%%* DeathByLookingUp: The cause of death for [[spoiler:Louise Leidner]] in ''[[spoiler:Murder in Mesopotamia]]''.
* DeathInTheClouds: The 1935 [[Literature/DeathInTheClouds novel of that title]] is the {{Trope Namer|s}}. A wealthy moneylender is killed with a poisoned dart aboard a flight from Paris to London, with Poirot himself among the suspects.
* DeconstructiveParody: "The Veiled Lady" is a literary ShotForShotRemake of the Literature/SherlockHolmes story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", but with an extra TwistEnding.
* DemotedToExtra: As Christie's dislike towards Poirot increased, his importance in the cases began 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.
* DetectivePatsy: Poirot is far too clever to fall for this, but occasionally he despairs of Hastings. 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 OnceAnEpisode, and [[LoveMakesYouDumb love makes him very dull-witted indeed]] (such as leaving a female suspect alone among critical evidence in ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'').
%%* TheDutifulSon: Richard Abernethie, whose funeral is the catalyst for the events in ''After the Funeral''.
%%** Another example is Alfred Lee, the oldest and most dutiful of Simeon Lee's sons from ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas''.
%%* EagleEyeDetection
* EdibleThemeNaming: Possibly by accident, but Poirot's surname literally translates as "little pear" (''poire''= "pear", and ''-ot'' is a diminiutive found in French names), and he then proceeds to hire an English secretary by the name of Lemon.
%%* EnfantTerrible: [[spoiler:Nigel Chapman]] is referred to as a grown-up version of this in ''Hickory Dickory Dock''.
* EurekaMoment: 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.
* EveryoneHasStandards: As a general rule, Poirot has no patience for murderers, [[SympatheticMurderer no matter how sympathetic their motives]]--in his eyes, only "le bon Dieu" (the good God) has power over life and death, and any human being who attempts to take that power for themselves is wrong. However, in ''Murder on the Orient Express'', even Poirot is so disgusted by the nature of Ratchett and his past, and [[spoiler: so sympathetic to the assembled group for seeking their revenge]], that he creates a phony story for the police to make sure that the murderer gets away with the crime.
* FailedASpotCheck: Some cases will have Poirot realizing he had a wrong assumption, saying something along the lines of "What a fool I've been!", especially if an innocent party gets killed because he didn't realize it soon enough.
* FairPlayWhodunnit: The astute reader should be able to keep up. Part of the way at the very least.
%%* FinallyFoundTheBody: The resolution of [[spoiler:''Dead Man's Folly'']].
* FramingTheGuiltyParty: [[spoiler:Nigel Chapman]] in ''Hickory Dickory Dock'' does what is called "double-bluffing". Numerous other examples are described on their respective work pages.
* 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. Poirot's brother Achille's role also counts [[spoiler:in the sense that he's a complete fabrication on Poirot's part]].
* 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.
%%* HalloweenEpisode: ''Hallowe'en Party''
* HaveAGayOldTime:
** "Gay" and "queer" are frequently used in their old meanings of "happy" and "peculiar".
** One of Japp's cheerful terms of friendship for Poirot is "old cock".
* 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'']]). It happens ''twice'' in [[spoiler: ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'' to the maid and Mrs. Otterbourne]]. 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''.
* HeelFaceDoorSlam: In ''The Hollow'' [[AssholeVictim Dr. John Christow]] has finally gotten closure on the love affair he fled years before, and has [[HeelRealization an epiphany]] about how much of a jerk he's been to the women in his life. He resolves to atone for his past behavior--and is promptly shot to death.
* HereditaryCurse: In ''The Lemesurier Inheritance'', the Lemesurier family had a curse since medieval times that no first-born son would ever inherit. The curse was caused by Baron Hugo who walled up his wife and son after suspecting her of being unfaithful and that his son was not his (the wife was later proven innocent). The wife in response cursed the Baron and his descendants before she died.
* HeroismWontPayTheBills: Poirot makes his money being an insurance investigator. Solving murder mysteries doesn't pay the bills, you know.
* 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''.
** Two coincidental, unrelated cases in ''Hercule Poirots 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 Spanish-born granddaughter, 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.]]
* IncriminatingIndifference:
** Subverted in ''Hickory Dickory Dock''. [[spoiler:Nigel Chapman]], after [[spoiler:Patricia]] is found dead, is incredibly upset, and because of this, the police say that he can't be the killer. Poirot points out that his tears were indeed genuine, and probably more so because [[spoiler:he loved her and had to kill her]].
** Used unexpectedly in "Problem at Sea": This trope is in play, [[spoiler:not after the murder, but ''before'' it. The saintly way the AssholeVictim's husband put up with her behaviour incriminates him after her murder -- everyone wondered how he could be so patient with the awful woman. The truth was, he'd already worked out how to kill her]].
** Played with in ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'', where the victim's wife initially appears suspiciously calm about her husband's disappearance, only to completely break down when called upon to identify his body in such a way that removes any possible doubt that she could have been involved in his death. Poirot is confused [[spoiler: but then later realises that the husband had planned to fake his death and the wife was in on it. She was initially playing it cool because she thought it was all part of the plan, but when she saw his body she was utterly horrified to realise that someone actually had murdered him before he could finish faking his death.]]
* InsistentTerminology: Hercule will ''always'' remind people he is not French, nor German. He is a proud Belgian.
* InspectorLestrade: Various officers fall into the role of policeman as sidekick and [[TheWatson Watson]] depending on the novel, some of them recurring such as Superintendents Spence and Battle, but Poirot's most frequent collaborator is Inspector (later Chief Inspector, later Commissioner) James Japp. In something of a {{Reconstruction}}, while Poirot is AlwaysSomeoneBetter, both Christie and Poirot himself take pains to point out that Scotland Yard's men are far from stupid, and in most cases they are more than sufficient to the task. But they are heavily taxed by the sheer number of crimes they have to solve, and the cases Poirot solves in the books are often somewhat difficult even for him to untangle, and often rely on manipulations and experiments rather than hard evidence, meaning that working as a private citizen there are avenues of investigation open to Poirot that would simply be outside the law as far as an actual police officer is concerned.
* InsufferableGenius: Next to his mustache, his most prominent and recognizable character trait is his staggeringly colossal ego, which many characters tire of throughout his adventures. Even ''Agatha Christie herself'' found him such an insufferable know-it-all that she grew tired of writing about him. But ''le grand Poirot'' can definitely back up his sense of self-importance, as he never fails to solve a case over a career spanning literal decades.
* ItsForABook: Poirot feels that if one must tell lies, they should be excellent lies.
* 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.
* 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; the killer already has the pistol, but Poirot believes the remorseful/despairing killer will use the pistol to give their co-conspirator an easy death, then [[DrivenToSuicide kill themselves]]. In both cases, he's proven correct]].
* LongRunners: Fifty-five years' worth of bestselling novels isn't bad.
* LoveForgivesAllButLust: In one short story, a man is (separately) romancing both a young woman and her aunt. He's trying to get money from the old lady and claiming that to prevent people from looking down on them both, he'll pretend to be in love with her niece. So when the aunt and niece have a fight (neither suspecting the man), the aunt sends Poirot a letter asking him to investigate.
%%* LoveTriangle: "Triangle At Rhodes".
%%* MadArtist: Michael Garfield, Mad Landscape Gardener, in ''Hallowe'en Party''.
* MaliciousSlander: Poirot's main motivation for solving crimes involves protecting the innocent from this.
* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: In the end of ''The Lemesurier Inheritance'', Poirot is strongly implying that Ronald Lemesurier's real father is John Gardiner, secretary to Hugo Lemesurier, based on the similarity in hair color of Ronald and John.
* 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, while ''Dumb Witness'' was changed to ''Poirot Loses A Client'', as the usage of "dumb" to mean "mute" does not carry overseas), 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.
* MasqueradingAsTheUnseen: In ''The Big Four'', one of the Four is a MasterOfDisguise. One of those disguises is an old Russian chessmaster, back from the gulags after many years of harsh treatments. The actual guy died in the gulags, and the Four are impersonating him to snatch up his huge inheritance.
%%* MasterOfDisguise: In ''The Big Four'' (see above).
* 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 phosphorescence of her breath.
* MistakenForDying: An intentional example in "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb". A young man commits suicide, calling himself a leper in his note. It turns out that this was not hyperbole: he really did think he had leprosy. This was a deliberate misdiagnosis from a doctor who stood to gain from his will. All he had was a harmless rash.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: "Triangle At Rhodes" has [[spoiler: two. Marjorie Gold and Tony Chantry want to get married, but they're both already married. They decide to fix this problem by orchestrating a pretend love triangle between Tony, Marjorie's husband Douglas and Tony's wife Valentine, and then killing Valentine, making it look as though Douglas did it while trying to kill Tony, and letting Douglas be hanged for it. Unluckily for them, Poirot sees through it]].
* MushroomSamba: In "The Flock of Geryon", one of the protagonists infiltrating the cult has what she believes to be a genuine religious experience; it turns out later that one of the cult's rituals involves [[spoiler:secretly dosing the followers with liquid THC]].
%%* MyBelovedSmother: Mrs. Boynton in ''Appointment With Death'' is a nigh-perfect example, bleeding over into EvilMatriarch (or WickedStepmother in the ''Poirot'' adaptation).
* NobodyTouchesTheHair: Poirot's mustache is iconic enough to have appeared as part of various franchise logos, sometimes paired with his bowler and bow tie -- perfectly waxed, full above the lips, not too wide, curling up into small, neat points. Poirot is fastidious about his appearance in general, vain enough to dye his hair and mustache for decades, with more than one character noting they are a rather implausibly dark shade of black; he can become noticeably self-conscious when called out on the former, flustered when so much as a hair is out of place, and offended by the lesser mustaches of messier men. 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 both ''The Big Four'' and ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'', in which Poirot shaves his mustache in order to pretend to be someone else.]]
* NoodleIncident: Poirot's vacation in Istanbul is cut short by a telegram alerting him of a development in the "Kassner case" in London, prompting him to book a trip home on the next Orient Express. We all know how ''that'' turned out, but never learned any further information about the Kassner case itself.
* OnceAnEpisode: 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.
* OutGambitted: Poirot is a master at foiling the murderer's EvilPlan.
%%* PathOfInspiration: ''The Labors of Hercules: The Flock of Geryon''
* PoirotSpeak: ''Naturellement.'' Although it's usually justified as being part of an ObfuscatingStupidity FunnyForeigner act; Poirot actually speaks very good English, but people tend to let their guard down around someone who doesn't even seem to speak the language clearly.
* PutOnABus: Hastings would make his last regular appearance in ''Dumb Witness'', retiring to his farm in Argentina. He would not return again [[TheBusCameBack until]] ''Literature/{{Curtain}}''.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: ''"Madame! WHO DO '''YOU''' THINK KILLED YOUR HUSBAND?"'', from ''Literature/LordEdgwareDies''.
* 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 [[EnglishRose flowers of English womanhood]] all -- are often naive, as hypocrisy and duplicity abound even among some of Hastings' supposed friends.
* {{Retcon}}: ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'' gives Hastings a love interest named Dulcie Duveen, whom he eventually marries. When he mentions his wife in a later book, Hastings calls his wife "Bella", who is actually Dulcie's twin sister and the fiancee of Jack Renaud.
* SerialKillingsSpecificTarget: [[spoiler:''Three Act Tragedy'']] and [[spoiler:''Literature/TheABCMurders'']].
* ShipperOnDeck: In many of his stories, he'll nudge two people together, seeing they make a perfect couple before they do.
* ShoutOutToShakespeare:
** ''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).
** In ''Curtain'', Poirot leaves behind two clues [[spoiler:upon his death]], one of them being ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'', [[spoiler:which indicates the identity of the serial killer as Stephen Norton, the FalseFriend and ManipulativeBastard who fits the characteristics of Iago in that play]].
** 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).
* SpiritualSuccessor: ''Series/{{Monk}}'' is essentially what Poirot would be in the 21st century.
* StarbucksSkinScale: In "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (a.k.a. The Theft of the Royal Ruby)", there is a young man from an unnamed Eastern country who has a "coffee-coloured face".
* SpitefulSuicide: "Wasp's Nest" has a man named Harrison plot to destroy a romantic rival's life by committing suicide and making it look like a murder (Harrison has terminal cancer anyway). Fortunately, over the course of a conversation with him (having anticipated the plot), Poirot is able to switch out the poison with baking soda, ending with the would-be murderer tearfully thanking Poirot.
* StealthInsult: In ''Death in the Clouds'' Poirot muses bitterly that his travel sickness means that when travelling "he has no little grey cells, he is reduced to a normal human being of rather below average intelligence" and then immediately segues into asking after [[InspectorLestrade Giraud]], his rival from ''Murder on the Links''.
* StoppedClock: Subverted in at least two Poirot stories, where a smashed watch is found at the scene to give a false time for the crime.
* TakingTheHeat: Done numerous times to provide {{Red Herring}}s.
** In ''Appointment with Death'', the Boyntons all lie about their final encounters with the victim, the family matriarch. Each had their own ideas about who the murderer is, and lied to protect the other. [[spoiler:None of them were the murderer. The killer was someone outside the family]]
** In ''The Hollow'', everyone seem to deliberately go out of their way to bring suspicion to themselves to divert the attention away from the most obvious suspect. [[spoiler:She turned out to be the murderer. However, the others tried to protect her out of family obligations.]]
* TakeThat: In ''Death in the Clouds'', one character (a novelist) says that the Literature/SherlockHolmes stories are overrated and filled with logical fallacies.
* ThemeNaming: Hercule's brother appears briefly in ''The Big Four'' and is named "Achille" [[spoiler:but is subsequently revealed to be fictional, created as a ploy on Poirot's part]].
* 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 about himself: they expected the great Hercule Poirot to be taken in so easily? Surely not!
* ThrillerOnTheExpress:
** In ''Literature/TheMysteryOfTheBlueTrain'', only the initial murder and investigation take place on the titular ''Le Train Bleu'' on the French Riviera -- an American heiress murdered over the theft of the Heart of Fire, one of the most valuable rubies in the world.
** ''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 murderer whom any one of them might have wished dead]].
* TrademarkFavouriteFood: It's not particularly emphasised, but Poirot likes his hot chocolate and his omelettes. Also parodied in ''Death in the Clouds'', where a writer of detective fiction mentions that his own detective creation is always eating bananas, both because he did it once and the fans liked it, and also because that's something the author himself does.
* TripTrap: In ''Dumb Witness'', the victim is believed to have fallen down a staircase after tripping over a dog's chewtoy. Poirot, however, discovers the remains of a tripwire on the top step, a clue that points to murder.
* 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.
* UnderTheMistletoe: Poirot, of all people, gets caught under mistletoe in "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (a.k.a. The Theft of the Royal Ruby)", on account of being too busy exercising his little grey cells to notice where he's standing. He doesn't seem to mind the result.
* UnderestimatingBadassery: Like Series/{{Columbo}}, Poirot counts on people underestimating him thanks to his carefully cultivated FunnyForeigner personality, no matter how famed he may be.
* VillainousBreakdown: The murderers in ''Death in the Clouds'' and ''Mrs. [=McGinty=]'s Dead'' both experience rather dramatic ones.
* TheWatson: Deconstructed in certain books. Hastings starts out as a very typical example, an ex-military man like the original Watson who serves as a foil and leg-man to the brilliant Poirot, but quickly becomes more of a parody, kept around because of his friendship with Poirot, and seemingly becoming involved in cases only for the little Belgian's amusement before being phased out entirely. 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.
* WhamEpisode:
** ''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.
** ''Curtain'' was also considered this given the events of the story. It was part of the reason Christie locked the novel up for 30 years before allowing it to be published shortly before her death.
* WhereItAllBegan: The final novel, ''Curtain'', not only returns to the location of the first, ''The Mysterious Affair at Styles'', but for good measure reunites Poirot and Hastings as well.
* WhoMurderedTheAsshole: ''Appointment with Death'', ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'', and many others described on their individual pages (some of which turn out to be subversions).
* WorthyOpponent: Any villain (identity usually unknown at this point in the story) whom Poirot describes approvingly as 'a man of method' after studying his crime, much to Hastings' annoyance.
* YouJustToldMe: In ''Death in the Clouds'':
-->'''Poirot''' (confronting the killer): We found your finger prints on the bottle.
-->'''The killer''': You lie! I wore... ([[INeverSaidItWasPoison trails off]])
-->'''Poirot''': Ah, you wore gloves?
* YouWatchTooMuchX: in "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding":
-->Poirot surveyed her gravely for some minutes.\\
'You see too many sensational films, I think, Annie,' he said at last, 'or perhaps it is the television that affects you?'
** Similarly, after Hastings outlines an elaborate theory of the crime in ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'' and asks what Poirot thinks, Poirot says, "I think you should write for the cinema."
** In several stories, characters complain that [[ThisIsReality investigating a real-life case is never as neat as a detective story.]]
----

* ''Elephants Can Remember'' (1972)

* Creator/KennethBranagh started his own cinematic interpretation, [[DirectedByCastMember directing the films and starring]] as Poirot:

* Creator/KennethBranagh started his own cinematic interpretation, directing his films and starring as Poirot:

* NobodyTouchesTheHair: Poirot's mustache is iconic enough to have appeared as part of various franchise logos, sometimes paired with his bowler and bow tie -- perfectly waxed, full above the lips, not too wide, curling up into small, neat points. Poirot is fastidious about his appearance in general, vain enough to dye his hair and mustache for decades, with more than one character noting they are a rather implausibly dark shade of black; he can become noticeably self-conscious when called out on the former, flustered when so much as a hair is out of place, and offended by the lesser mustaches of less tidy men. 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 both ''The Big Four'' and ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'', in which Poirot shaves his mustache in order 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! [[spoiler: Subverted in ''The Big Four'' and ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'', in which Poirot has shaved his mustache to pretend to be someone else.]]

* SocietyMarchesOn:
** As the novels went on, from the '50s and into the '60s, Poirot becomes increasingly disillusioned with 'pop' culture and perceived coarseness of the younger generation.
** In "The Capture Of Cerberus", the short story begins with Poirot on a subway looking at how mousy and uncaring people are about their appearance, and misses when women in his opinion were flamboyant and elegant.

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