Curtain | Agatha Christie Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit After a year apart Hercule Poirot, now crippled with arthritis, is reunited with his old companion Captain Hastings, who has since become a widower. When they receive a letter from Styles Court, the place where they solved their first murder together, it seems like fate and they readily accept. However, after the great detective brands one of the seemingly harmless guests, whom he will only identify as 'X', a ruthless serial killer, people begin having doubts about the capability of his once renowned 'little grey cells'. But Poirot is aware that he alone must work quickly before the murderer strikes again, even if it means putting his life on the line... Plot summary Edit The murderer, identified by Poirot simply by the letter X, has been completely unsuspected of involvement in five previous murders, in all of which there was a clear suspect. Four of these suspects have subsequently died (one of them hanged), but in the case of Freda Clay, who gave her aunt an overdose of morphine, there was considered to be too little evidence to prosecute.

Hastings agrees that it is highly unlikely to be coincidence if X was connected with all five deaths, but Poirot, now using a wheelchair due to arthritis and attended by his new valet Curtiss, will not give him X's name. He merely makes it clear that X is in the house, which has been turned into a private hotel by the new owners: Colonel and Mrs Luttrell. Hastings makes certain discoveries in the next few days. Elizabeth Cole, another guest at the hotel, reveals to him that she is in fact the sister of Margaret Litchfield, who had confessed to the murder of their father in one of the five cases. Margaret had died in Broadmoor Asylum and Elizabeth feels stigmatised by the case. Later that day Hastings and several other people overhear an argument between Colonel Luttrell and his wife. Shortly afterwards, he wounds her with a rook rifle, apparently mistaking her for a rabbit. Hastings reflects that this is precisely the sort of accident with which X is associated, but Mrs Luttrell rapidly recovers.

Hastings is concerned by the attentions paid to his daughter Judith by Major Allerton, whom he discovers is married but estranged from his Catholic wife. While he and Elizabeth are out with Stephen Norton, another guest and a birdwatcher, Norton sees something through his binoculars that seems to upset him. Hastings suspects that it is something to do with Allerton and, when his clumsy attempts to persuade Judith to give Allerton up merely antagonise her, he plans Allerton's murder. He falls asleep while waiting to poison Allerton, and feels differently about things when he awakes the next day. Barbara Franklin, the wife of Judith's employer Dr Franklin and the childhood friend of Sir William Boyd Carrington, dies the following evening. She has been poisoned with physostigmine sulphate, an extract from the Calabar bean that her husband has been researching. After Poirot's testimony at the inquest – that Mrs Franklin had been upset and that she had emerged from Dr Franklin's laboratory with a small bottle – a verdict of suicide is brought in, but Hastings suspects that the death was murder and Poirot confirms this.

Norton, still evidently upset about what he has seen through the binoculars, asks Hastings for his advice, which is to confide in Poirot. Poirot arranges a meeting between them and says that Norton must not speak to anyone further of what he has seen. That night, Hastings is awakened by a noise and sees Norton – with his dressing-gown, untidy grey hair and characteristic limp – go into his bedroom. The next morning, however, Norton is found dead in his locked room with a bullet-hole perfectly in the centre of his forehead, the key in his dressing-gown pocket and a pistol (remembered by a housemaid as belonging to him) nearby. Apparently, X has struck again. Poirot takes Hastings over the evidence, pointing out that his belief that he saw Norton that night relies on loose evidence: the dressing-gown, the hair, the limp. Nevertheless, it seems that there is no one in the house who could have impersonated Norton, who was a short man. Hastings despairs that the mystery will ever be solved when Poirot himself dies that night, apparently of natural causes.

He nevertheless leaves Hastings three conscious clues: a copy of Othello, a copy of John Ferguson (a 1915 play by St. John Greer Ervine that is now – unluckily for readers of Curtain – largely forgotten) and a note telling Hastings to speak to his permanent valet, Georges. In the weeks that follow the death of Poirot, Hastings is staggered to discover that Judith has all along been in love with Dr Franklin, and is now marrying him and going with him to do research in Africa. Was Judith the murderer? When Hastings speaks to Georges, he discovers that Poirot wore a wig, and also that Poirot's reasons for employing Curtiss were vague. Perhaps the murderer was Curtiss all along? The solution, and one of the greatest of Christie's twist endings, is contained in a written confession that is sent to Hastings from Poirot's lawyers, four months after Poirot's death.

In it, Poirot reveals that he wore a false moustache as well as a wig and explains that X was Norton, a man who had perfected the technique of which Iago in Othello (like a character in Ervine's play) is master: applying just such psychological pressure as is needed to provoke someone to commit murder, where normally they would let the other live and dismiss their desires as simply the heat of the moment, without anyone ever truly realising what he is doing. Again and again Norton had demonstrated this ability, first by apparently clumsy remarks that goaded Colonel Luttrell to take a homicidal shot at his wife, and then by his careful manipulation of Hastings to resolve upon the murder of Major Allerton. It was Norton's contrivances that created the impression that Judith loved Allerton when in fact she has been in love with Franklin all along.

Hastings's potential murder had, however, been averted by Poirot's presence of mind in forcing drugged hot chocolate upon him on the night that he had intended it to take place, the same action resolving Poirot to take action; he knew that Hastings was not a murderer, but if he had not intervened Hastings would have hanged for a crime while the 'true' murderer would have escaped seemingly innocent. Deprived of his prey twice, Norton turned to Mrs Franklin, who was soon persuaded to attempt the murder of her husband, after which she could be reunited with the wealthy and attractive Boyd Carrington. By an ironic twist of Fate, however, Hastings himself had intervened in this murder; by turning a revolving bookcase table while seeking out a book in order to solve a crossword clue (coincidentally Othello again) he had swapped the cups of coffee so that the one with poison in it was actually drunk by Mrs Franklin herself. Poirot knew all this but could not prove it.

He sensed that Norton, who had been deliberately vague about whom he had seen through the binoculars when attempting to imply that he had seen Allerton and Judith, was now intending to reveal that he had seen Franklin and Judith, almost certainly implicating them in the apparent murder of Franklin's wife. The only solution was for Poirot to murder Norton himself. At their meeting, he revealed to Norton what he suspected and said that he intended to 'execute' him. He then gave him hot chocolate. Norton, arrogantly self-assured in the face of both the accusation and the threat, insisted on swapping cups, but both contained the same sleeping pills that had previously been used by Poirot to drug Hastings; guessing that Norton would request the swap, Poirot had drugged both cups, knowing that his time taking the pills would give him a higher tolerance for a dose that would put Norton out. With Norton unconscious, Poirot, whose incapacity had been faked (a trick for which he needed a temporary valet who did not know how healthy he was and would accept his word without question) moved the body back to Norton's room in his wheelchair.

Then, he disguised himself as Norton by removing his wig, putting on Norton's dressing-gown and ruffling up his grey hair. Poirot was the only short suspect at the house. With it established that Norton was alive after he left Poirot's room, Poirot shot him – with characteristic but unnecessary symmetry – in the centre of his forehead. He locked the room with a duplicate key that Hastings knew Poirot to possess; both Hastings and the reader would have assumed that the duplicate key was to Poirot's own room, but Poirot had said that he had changed rooms before Norton's arrival, and it was to this previous room that he had the key. Poirot's last actions were to write the confession and await his death, which he accelerated by moving amyl nitrite phials out of his own reach, seeking to avoid the traditional arrogance of the murderer where he might come to believe that he had the right to kill those he deemed it necessary to eliminate. His last wish is implicitly that Hastings will marry Elizabeth Cole: a final instance of the inveterate matchmaking that has characterised his entire career.

Characters Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective Captain Arthur Hastings, Poirot's friend and Judith's father Curtiss, Poirot's valet Dr John Franklin, a research chemist Barbara Franklin, his invalided wife Judith Hastings, Franklin's laboratory assistant and Captain Hastings' independent daughter Nurse Craven, nurse to Barbara Franklin Sir William Boyd Carrington, former governor of a province of India Major Allerton, a womaniser Stephen Norton, a bird watcher Colonel Toby Luttrell, owner of Styles Court Mrs Daisy Luttrell, his wife Elizabeth Cole Edit In a review titled The last labour of Hercules, Matthew Coady in The Guardian of October 9, 1975 said that the book was both "a curiosity and a triumph." He repeated the tale of the book being written some thirty years before and then stated that, "through it, Dame Agatha, whose recent work has shown a decline, is seen once more at the peak of her ingenuity." Commenting on the return of Hastings, Coady called the character the "densest of Dr Watsons; but never has the stupidity of the faithful companion-chronicler been so cunningly exploited as it is here." Coady summarised the absolute

 basics of the plot and the questions raised within it and then said, "In providing the answers, the great illusionist of crime fiction provides a model demonstration of reader manipulation.

The seemingly artless, simplistic Christie prose is mined with deceits. Inside the old, absurd conventions of the Country House mystery she reworks the least likely person trick with a freshness rivalling the originality she displayed nearly 50 years ago in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . Coady concluded, "For the egotistic Poirot, hero of some 40 books…it is a dazzlingly theatrical finish. 'Goodbye, cher ami,' runs his final message to the hapless Hastings. 'They were good days.' For addicts, everywhere, they were among the best." Two months later, Coady nominated Curtain as his Book of the Year in a column of critic's choices. He said, "No crime story of 1975 has given me more undiluted pleasure.

As a critic, I welcome it, as a reminder that sheer ingenuity can still amaze." Maurice Richardson in The Observer of October 5, 1975 summed up: "One of her most highly contrived jobs, artificial as a mechanical birdcage, but an unputdownable swansong." Robert Barnard: "Written in the 'forties, designed for publication after Christie's death, but in fact issued just before it. Based on an idea toyed with in Peril at End House (chapter 9) – a clever and interesting one, but needing greater subtlety in the handling than Christie's style or characterisation will allow (the characters here are in any case quite exceptionally pallid). In fact, for a long-cherished idea, and as an exit for Poirot, this is oddly perfunctory in execution." References or Allusions Edit Due to its early date of composition, Curtain takes no account of Poirot's later career.

While details are only very occasionally anachronistic (such as the mentions of hanging, which had been abolished in Great Britain in 1965) they often have implications for the series as a whole that can only be dismissed by remembering that Christie probably intended the novel to be published earlier than it was; the fifth paragraph ("Wounded in the war that for me would always be the war--the war that was wiped out now by a second and more desperate war.") sets it within World War II. Hastings, who had been invalided out of the First World War, became involved in the first Styles investigation in 1916, at which time he was around thirty years old. We know that Poirot was alive to solve the mystery in Elephants Can Remember, which was set in 1972-3. Quite apart from Poirot's age, Hastings must therefore himself be around ninety years old at the time of Curtain. While this does not make it impossible that he should marry Elizabeth Cole, who is thirty-five, it certainly makes it exceptional.

Hastings himself estimates in Chapter 8 that Elizabeth is "well over ten years my junior" and an age of fifty is far more suitable for the way that he describes himself in the novel. Another detail is Poirot's reference to a trip to Egypt for his health. At the time that Curtain was written this was almost certainly intended to be a reference to Death on the Nile , but if Hastings has seen Poirot a year before his death, then we must suppose that Poirot made a second trip there in about 1974. This, however, is merely to tie oneself in knots attempting to suggest a true, consistent biography that stands behind an entirely fictional sequence of events. Poirot mentions that once in Egypt he attempted to warn a murderer before the person committed the crime. That case is the one retold in Death on the Nile. He mentions that there was another case in which he had done the same thing: almost certainly that retold in “Triangle at Rhodes” (published in Murder in the Mews in 1937). In another book, Japp asks Poirot how he would commit a murder. Poirot replies that if he did, there would be no body to find.

This is proved wrong in this book. In The ABC Murders , Inspector Japp says to Poirot: "Shouldn't wonder if you ended by detecting your own death". A clue of Curtain already being formed in the author's mind in 1935. On August 6, 1975, The New York Times published a front-page obituary of Hercule Poirot with a photograph to mark his death. Adaptation The novel was adapted in 2012 starring David Suchet as Poirot.

It was the final episode of the final series of Agatha Christie's Poirot Publication history 1975, Collins Crime Club (London), September 1975, Hardcover, 224 pp ISBN 0-00-231619-6 1975, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 238 pp, ISBN 0-396-07191-0 1976, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, 280 pp 1976, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 325 pp, ISBN 0-85456-498-5 1977, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins ), Paperback, 188 pp 1992, G.K. Hall & Co.

large-print edition, Hardcover, ISBN 0-8161-4539-3 In the US the novel was serialised in Ladies Home Journal in two abridged instalments from July (Volume XCII, Number 7) to August 1975 (Volume XCII, Number 8) with an illustration by Mark English. International titles Curtain: Poirot's Last Case by Agatha Christie - Agatha Christie Synopsis Curtain: Poirot's Last Case Poirot and Hastings come full circle at Styles. Now wheelchair bound, there is still one case for Poirot to solve. Who is the serial killer X? More about this story Arthritic and immobilized, Poirot calls on his old friend Captain Hastings to join him at Styles to be the eyes and ears that will feed observations to Poirot's still razor sharp mind. Though aware of the criminal's identity, Poirot will not reveal it to the frustrated Hastings, and dubs the nameless personage 'X'. Already responsible for several murders, X, Poirot warns, is ready to strike again, and the partners must work swiftly to prevent imminent murder.

Poirot’s final case, a mystery which brings him and Hastings back to Styles where they first solved a crime together. The story was both anticipated and dreaded by Agatha Christie fans worldwide, many of whom still refuse to read it, as it is known to contain Poirot’s death. Agatha Christie wrote it during World War II, as a gift for her daughter should she not survive the bombings, and it was kept in a safe for over thirty years. It was agreed among the family that Curtain would be published finally in 1975 by Collins, her long-standing publishers, and that Sleeping Murder (the Marple story written during the war for her husband, Max) would follow. The reception of Poirot’s death was international, even earning him an obituary in The New York Times; he is still the only fictional character to have received such an honour. The first actor to take on the role of portraying Poirot in his final hours was David Suchet, as the final episode of the series Agatha Christie’s Poirot for which he’d been playing the role for twenty-five years. The episode was adapted in 2013.

Buy Curtain: Poirot's Last Case Featured product TV review: Curtain: Poirot's Final Case « Express & Star PUBLISHED: November 14, 2013 6:00 am LAST UPDATED: November 14, 2013 8:10 am TV review: Curtain: Poirot's Final Case So farewell then after a quarter of a century on the small screen to David Suchet’s Hercule Poirot. Signing off – David Suchet plays Hercule Poirot for the last time Curtain: Poirot’s Final Case, the adaptation of Agatha Christie’s last 1975 book about her fat little Belgian hero, presented Poirot as he had never been seen on TV or film before. For the last appearance of the iconic character and his little grey cells, Suchet shed two stone and his normally portly Poirot was a shrunken and sickly old man, seemingly crippled by arthritis.

The terminal mystery for the great Belgian detective took him back after the Second World War to the scene of his first appearance in the works of Agatha Christie, re-uniting him with Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) for a baffling case that eventually ends in three deaths. A great cast had been assembled for the last outing of Suchet in the role that he has made his own and he did not disappoint with one of his best ever and most moving performances. Philip Glenister, Helen Baxendale, Anne Reid and John Standing were among the characters filling the guest house of Styles Court with a wheelchair-bound Poirot determined to unmask a killer before he knew who was to be the victim. “I am a wreck, mon ami,” Poirot told his old friend Hastings, who was shocked at his decline, but it was quickly clear that the detective’s mental powers were undiminished as he boasted “my brain is as magnificent as ever.” The plot presented a wide choice of candidates for murderer and victim for the viewer to pit his wits against the fading Poirot, who was wracked throughout with Catholic guilt. The mood was much darker than the usual Poirot and many scenes were shot by candlelight adding to the tense and menacing atmosphere.

Even Hastings acting as the stricken Poirot’s eyes, ears and legs, tormented by his daughter’s attraction to a cad, seemed at one stage to be a potential killer. Poirot’s own death from natural causes came as a surprise 35 minutes from the end of the two-hour long goodbye. With Poirot no more, instead of the trademark summing up scene and the pointing of the finger at the guilty party, the device of a letter written by him and delivered four months later to Hastings was employed to explain all with the help of flashbacks and Poirot’s own voice reading his last message. The villainous instigator of numerous murders turned out to be the meekest of the suspects and his own killer, with a gunshot perfectly placed in the centre of the forehead, the last person that anyone would have guessed would get away with a perfect murder. The episode ended with a final enigmatic shot of Poirot with his trademark moustache firmly in place on his egg-shaped head.

In Being Poirot, which followed the last episode, David Suchet told the story of his television character and offered some illuminating looks behind the scenes of the successful show, which ran for 13 series and was watched by 700 million around the globe. He confessed: “Hercule Poirot is for me much more than a character on the written page: for me he is almost a real person.” Poirot was the most important part in the 67-year-old actor’s career and the affection he holds for him after making 70 films as him was clear. To research the role he won in 1988, the meticulous method actor read every single word Christie, who died in 1976, wrote about the neat and precise little Belgian sleuth in 30 novels and 50 short stories and produced a list of 93 notes to help him play the part. One thing he did not mention in the documentary was how he perfected Poirot’s ‘rapid mincing gait in patent leather boots’ with the aid of a penny clenched between his buttocks, a method he borrowed from Laurence Olivier.

John Corser Hercule Poirot | Agatha Christie Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit His character was based on two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poiret, a retired French police officer living in London. A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle. In An Autobiography Christie admits that "I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition – eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp." 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. In chapter 4 of the second Inspector Hanaud novel, "The House of the Arrow" (1924), Hanaud declares sanctimoniously to the heroine, "You are wise, Mademoiselle… For, after all, I am Hanaud.

There is only one." Poirot's being a Belgian, unlike the above-mentioned models, is clearly the result of the first book being written in 1916 (though only published in 1920). Not only did his coming from a country occupied by Germany provide a very good reason why such a skilled detective would be out of work and available to solve mysteries at an English country house, but also at the time of writing it was considered patriotic to express sympathy with the Belgians – since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's casus belli for entering World War I. Popularity Edit His first published appearance was in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (published 1920) and his last was in Curtain (published 1975, the year before Christie died). On publication of this novel, Poirot was the only fictional character to be given an obituary in The New York Times ; August 6, 1975 "Hercule Poirot is Dead; Famed Belgian Detective". Appearance and personal attributes Edit Here is how Captain Arthur Hastings first describes Poirot: "He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity.

His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police." In the later books, the limp is not mentioned. 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. Frequent mention is made of his patent-leather shoes, damage to which is frequently a subject of (for the reader, comical) misery on his part. Poirot's appearance, regarded as fastidious during his early career, is hopelessly out of fashion later in his career. "The plane dropped slightly.

"Mon estomac," thought Hercule Poirot, and closed his eyes determinedly." Among Poirot's most significant personal attributes is the sensitivity of this stomach. He suffers from sea sickness, and in Death in the Clouds believes that his air sickness prevents him from being more alert at the time of the murder. Later in his life, we are told: "Always a man who had taken his stomach seriously, he was reaping his reward in old age. Eating was not only a physical pleasure, it was also an intellectual research." Poirot is extremely punctual and carries a turnip pocket watch almost to the end of his career. Methods Edit 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". Irritating to Hastings (and, sometimes, to the reader) is the fact that Poirot will sometimes conceal from him important details of his plans, as in The Big Four where Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax.

This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels, partly because there is rarely a narrator so there is no one for Poirot to mislead. As early as Murder on the Links , where he still largely depends on clues, Poirot mocks a rival 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. From this point on he establishes himself as a psychological detective who proceeds not by a painstaking examination of the crime scene, but by enquiring either into the nature of the victim or the murderer. Central to his behaviour in the later novels is the underlying assumption that particular crimes are only committed by particular types of person. Poirot's methods focus on getting people to talk. Early in the novels, he frequently casts himself in the role of "Papa Poirot", a benign confessor, especially to young women. Later he lies freely in order gain the confidences of other characters, either inventing his own reason for being interested in the case or a family excuse for pursuing a line of questioning.

"To this day Harold is not quite sure what made him suddenly pour out the whole story to a little man to whom he had only spoken a few minutes before." Poirot is also willing to appear more foreign or vain than he really is in an effort to make people underestimate him. He admits as much: "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. […] Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, "A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much. […] And so, you see, I put people off their guard." 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.

All these techniques help Poirot attain his principal target: "For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away …" Recurring characters Edit Hastings first meets Poirot during his years as a private detective in Europe and almost immediately after they both arrive in England, becomes his life-long partner and appears in many of the novels and stories. Poirot regarded Hastings as a poor private detective, not particularly intelligent, yet helpful in his way of being fooled by the criminal and for his tendency to unknowingly "stumble" onto the truth. It must also be said that Hastings was a man who was capable of great bravery and courage when the road got rough, facing death unflinchingly when confronted by The Big Four and possessing unwavering loyalty towards Poirot. When forced to choose between Poirot and his wife in that novel, he chose Poirot. The two were an airtight team until Hastings met and married Dulcie Duveen, a beautiful music hall performer half his age, which was not objectionable in the late Victorian, Edwardian world.

They later emigrated to Argentina leaving Poirot behind as a "very unhappy old man." Poirot and Hastings are at last reunited in Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. They are also reunited in The ABC Murders when Hastings arrives in England for business. Edit The frequently recurring detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's humorous self-caricature. Like Agatha Christie, she isn't overly fond of the detective she is most famous for creating – in Ariadne's case a Finn Sven Hjerson . We never learn about her husband but we know that she hates alcohol and public appearances and has a great fondness for apples until she is put off them by the events of the Hallowe’en party. She also has a habit of constantly changing her hairstyle and in every appearance by her much is made of the clothes and hats she wears. She has a maid called Milly who prevents the public adoration from becoming too much of a burden on her employer, but does nothing to prevent her aggravating employer from becoming too much of a burden on others. She has authored over fifty six novels and she has a great dislike of people taking and modifying her story characters.

She is also the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that "It’s not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B." She first met Poirot when they put their Cards on the Table and has been bothering him ever since. Edit Poirot's secretary, Miss Lemon, has few human weaknesses. The only two mistakes she is ever recorded making are a typing error during the events of Hickory Dickory Dock and the mis-mailing of an electric bill. Poirot described her as being "Unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. Anything that she mentioned as worth consideration usually was worth consideration." She is an expert on nearly everything and plans to create the perfect filing system. She also once worked for the government agent-turned-philanthropist, Parker Pyne . Whether this was during one of Poirot’s numerous retirements or before she entered his employment is unknown. Edit Japp is an Inspector from Scotland Yard and appears in many of the stories, trying to solve the cases Poirot is working on.

Japp is an outgoing, loud and sometimes inconsiderate man by nature and his relationship with the bourgeois Belgian is one of the stranger aspects of Poirot’s world. He first met Poirot in Belgium, 1904, during the Abercrombie Forgery and later that year joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara. They also meet in England where Poirot often helps Japp solve a case and lets him take the credit in return for special favours. These favours usually entail being supplied with cases that would interest him. Edit Georges (we are never told his last name) is a classic English valet and first entered Poirot’s employ in 1923 and didn’t leave his side until the 1970s, shortly before Poirot’s death. A competent, matter-of-fact man with an extensive knowledge of the English aristocracy and absolutely no imagination, Georges provides a steady contrast to Hastings. Hercule Poirot's life Edit "I suppose you know pretty well everything there is to know about Poirot's family by this time".

It is difficult to draw any concrete conclusions about Poirot's family due to the fact that Poirot often supplies false or misleading information about himself or his background in order to assist him in obtaining information relevant to a particular case. In chapter 21 of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd , for example, we learn that he has been talking about a mentally disabled nephew: this proves to be a ruse so that he can find out about homes for the mentally unfit … but that does not mean that Poirot does not have such a nephew. In Dumb Witness, he regales us with stories of his elderly invalid mother as a pretence to investigate the local nurses. In The Big Four Hastings believes that he meets Achille Poirot who (in an apparent parody of Mycroft Holmes) is evidently his smarter brother. On this occasion, Achille is almost certainly Poirot himself in disguise (Poirot speaks in Chapter 18 of having sent Achille "back to the land of myths"), but this does not conclusively demonstrate that Poirot does not have a brother, or even a brother called Achille. Any evidence regarding Poirot for which Poirot himself is the source is therefore most unreliable.

Achille Poirot is also mentioned by Dr. Burton in the prelude to The Labours of Hercules. Poirot was apparently born in Spa, Belgium and, based on the conjecture that he was thirty at the time of his retirement from the Belgian police force at the time of the outbreak of the First World War, it is suggested that he was born in the mid 1880s. This is all extremely vague, as Poirot is thought to be an old man in his dotage even in the early Poirot novels, and in An Autobiography Christie admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920. (At the time, of course, she had no idea she would be going on writing Poirot books for many decades to come.) Much of the suggested dating for Poirot's age is therefore post-rationalisation on the part of those attempting to make sense of his extraordinarily long career. Poirot is a Roman Catholic by birth, and retains a strong sense of Catholic morality later in life. Not much is known of Poirot’s childhood other than he once claimed in Three Act Tragedy to have been from a large family with little wealth.

In Taken at the Flood , he further claimed to have been raised and educated by nuns, raising the possibility that he (and any siblings) were orphaned. Poirot’s police years Edit "Gustave […] was not a policeman. I have dealt with policemen all my life and I know. He could pass as a detective to an outsider but not to a man who was a policeman himself." — Hercule Poirot in "The Erymanthian Boar" (1940). As an adult, Poirot joined the Belgian police force. Very little mention is made in Christie's work about this part of his life, but in "The Nemean Lion" (1939) Poirot himself refers to a Belgian case of his in which "a wealthy soap manufacturer […] poisoned his wife in order to be free to marry his secretary". We do not know whether this case resulted in a successful prosecution or not; moreover, Poirot is not above lying in order to produce a particular effect in the person to whom he is speaking, so this evidence is not reliable.

Inspector Japp gives some insight into Poirot's career with the Belgian police when introducing him to a colleague: "You've heard me speak of Mr Poirot? It was in 1904 he and I worked together – the Abercrombie forgery case – you remember he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were the days Moosier. Then, do you remember "Baron" Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed him in Antwerp – thanks to Mr. Poirot here." Perhaps this is enough evidence to suggest that Poirot's police career was a successful one. In the short story The Chocolate Box (1923) Poirot provides Captain Arthur Hastings with an account of what he considers to be his only failure. Poirot admits that he has failed to solve a crime "innumerable" times: "I have been called in too late. Very often another, working towards the same goal, has arrived there first.

Twice I have been struck down with illness just as I was on the point of success." Nevertheless, he regards the case in "The Chocolate Box", which took place in 1893, as his only actual failure of detection. Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth. It was also in this period that Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof onto the public below. Poirot has retired from the Belgian police force by the time that he meets Hastings in 1916 on the case retold in The Mysterious Affair at Styles . It should be noted that Poirot is a French-speaking Belgian, i.e. a Walloon; but there can hardly be found any occasion where he refers to himself as such, or is so referred to by others. At the time of writing, at least of the earlier books where the character was defined, non-Belgians such as Agatha Christie were far less aware than nowadays of the deep linguistic divide in Belgian society. Career as a private detective Edit "I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked.

So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot." During World War I, Poirot left Belgium for Britain as a refugee. It was here, on 16 July 1916, that he again met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published: The Mysterious Affair at Styles . After that case Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service, and undertook cases for the British government, including foiling the attempted abduction of the Prime Minister. After the war Poirot became a free agent and began undertaking civilian cases. He moved into what became both his home and work address, 56B Whitehaven Mansions, Sandhurst Square, London W1. It was chosen by Poirot for its symmetry. 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. Between the world wars, Poirot traveled all over Europe and the Middle East investigating crimes and murders.

Most of his cases happened during this period and he was at the height of his powers at this point in his life. Murder on the Links saw the Belgian pit his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East he solved Murder on the Orient Express (though the bulk of the story takes places in the territory of the former Yugoslavia), the Death on the Nile , and the Murder in Mesopotamia with ease and even survived Appointment with Death . However he did not travel to the Americas or Australia, probably due to his sea sickness. "It is this villainous sea that troubles me! The mal de mer – it is horrible suffering!" It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff , a glamorous jewel thief. The history of the Countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery. She claims to have been a member of the Russian aristocracy before the Russian Revolution and suffered greatly as a result, but how much of that story is true is an open question. Even Poirot acknowledges that Rossakoff has told several wildly varying accounts of her early life. Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice.

"It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the Countess held for him." Although letting the Countess escape may be morally questionable, that impulse to take the law into his own hands was far from unique. 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 even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff before her dog kidnapping campaign came to an end. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd he allowed the murderer to escape justice through suicide and then ensured the truth was never known to spare the feelings of the murderer's relatives. In "The Augean Stables" he helped the government to cover up vast corruption, even though it might be considered more honest to let the truth come out. After his cases in the Middle East, Poirot returned to Britain.

Apart from some of the so-called "Labours of Hercules" (see next section) he very rarely traveled abroad during his later career. Retirement Edit "That’s the way of it. Just a case or two, just one case more – the Prima Donna’s farewell performance won’t be in it with yours, Poirot." There is a great deal of confusion about Poirot's retirement. Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to grow marrows, at which time he solves The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . It has been said that twelve cases related in The Labours of Hercules (1947) must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before Roger Ackroyd, and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them. There is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" to the fact that there has been a gap of twenty years between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one.

If the Labours precede the events in Roger Ackroyd, then the Roger Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty years later than it was published, and so must any of the cases that refer to it. 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. Another alternative would be to suggest that the Preface to the Labours takes place at one date but that the labours are completed over a matter of twenty years. None of the explanations is especially attractive. In terms of a rudimentary chronology, Poirot speaks of retiring to grow marrows in Chapter 18 of The Big Four (1927), which places that novel out of published order before Roger Ackroyd. He declines to solve a case for the Home Secretary because he is retired in Chapter One of Peril at End House (1932). He is certainly retired at the time of Three Act Tragedy (1935) but he does not enjoy his retirement and comes repeatedly out of it thereafter when his curiosity is engaged.

Nevertheless, he continues to employ his secretary, Miss Lemon, at the time of the cases retold in Hickory Dickory Dock and Dead Man's Folly , which take place in the mid-1950s. It is therefore better to assume that Christie provided no authoritative chronology for Poirot's retirement, but assumed that he could either be an active detective, a consulting detective or a retired detective as the needs of the immediate case required. One thing that is consistent about Poirot's retirement is that his fame declines during it, so that in the later novels he is often disappointed when characters (especially younger characters) do not recognise either him or his name: "I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot." The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved. "What a lovely name," she said kindly. "Greek, isn't it?" Post World War Edit "He, I knew, was not likely to be far from his headquarters. The time when cases had drawn him from one end of England to the other was past." Poirot is less active during the cases that take place at the end of his career.

Beginning with Three Act Tragedy (1934), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a sub-genre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events. In novels such as Taken at the Flood , After the Funeral and Hickory Dickory Dock he is even less in evidence, frequently passing the duties of main interviewing detective to a subsidiary character. In Cat Among the Pigeons Poirot's entrance is so late as to be almost an afterthought. Whether this was a reflection of his age or of the fact that Christie was by now heartily sick of him it is difficult to assess. 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. Towards the end of his career it becomes clear that Poirot's retirement is no longer a convenient fiction. He assumes a genuinely inactive lifestyle during which he concerns himself with studying famous unsolved cases of the past and reading detective novels.

He even writes a book about mystery fiction in which he deals sternly with Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. In the absence of a more appropriate puzzle, he solves such inconsequential domestic problems as the presence of three pieces of orange peel in his umbrella stand. Poirot (and, it is reasonable to suppose, his creator) becomes increasingly bemused by the vulgarism of the up and coming generation's young people. In Hickory Dickory Dock , he investigates the strange goings on in a student hostel, while in the Third Girl he is forced into contact with the smart set of Chelsea youths. In the growing drug and pop culture of the sixties, he proves himself once again, but has become heavily reliant on other investigators (especially the private investigator, Mr. Goby) who provide him with the clues that he can no longer gather for himself. "You're too old. Nobody told me you were so old. I really don't want to be rude but – there it is. You're too old. I'm really very sorry." Death Edit Poirot dies from inevitable complications of a heart condition at the end of Curtain: Poirot's Last Case .

By this point in his life he is wearing a wig and false moustache, and also seems to be afflicted by arthritis. In the book the Curtain: Poirot's Last Case Hastings finds a manuscript written by Poirot, within the confines of the script is a confession that Poirot has committed murder. He also states that since he has become something that he has always opposed and fought, he neglects to take his heart medication, which subsequently causes his death. With Norton unconscious, Poirot, whose incapacity had been faked (a trick for which he needed a temporary valet who did not know how healthy he was) moved the body back to Norton’s room in his wheelchair. Then, he disguised himself as Norton by removing his own wig, putting on Norton’s dressing-gown and ruffling up his grey hair. Poirot was the only short suspect at the house. With it established that Norton was alive after he left Poirot’s room, Poirot shot him – with perfect and unnecessary symmetry – in the centre of his forehead.

He locked the room with a duplicate key that Hastings knew Poirot to possess; both Hastings and the reader would have assumed that the duplicate key was to Poirot's own room, but Poirot had changed rooms before Norton's arrival, and it was to this previous room that he had the key. Poirot’s last actions were to write the confession and await his death, which he accelerated by moving amyl nitrite phials out of his own reach. His last wish is implicitly that Hastings will marry Elizabeth Cole: a final instance of the inveterate matchmaking that has characterised his entire career. Major novels Edit The Poirot books take readers through the whole of his life in England, from the first book ( The Mysterious Affair at Styles ), where he is a refugee staying at Styles, to the last Poirot book ( Curtain ), where he visits Styles once again before his death. In between, Poirot solves cases outside England as well, including his most famous case, Murder on the Orient Express (1934). Hercule Poirot became famous with the publication, in 1926, of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd , whose surprising solution proved controversial.

The novel is still among the most famous of all detective novels: Edmund Wilson alludes to it in the title of his well-known attack on detective fiction, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" Aside from Roger Ackroyd, the most critically-acclaimed Poirot novels appeared from 1932 to 1942, including such acknowledged classics as Murder on the Orient Express , The ABC Murders (1935), Cards on the Table (1936), and Death on the Nile (1937). The last of these, a tale of multiple homicide upon a Nile steamer, was judged by the celebrated detective novelist John Dickson Carr to be among the ten greatest mystery novels of all time. The 1942 novel Five Little Pigs (aka Murder in Retrospect), in which Poirot investigates a murder committed sixteen years before by analyzing various accounts of the tragedy, is a Rashomon-like performance that critic and mystery novelist Robert Barnard called the best of the Christie novels. Portrayals Edit Austin Trevor debuted the role of Poirot on film in the 1931 movie Alibi.

The film was based on the stage play Alibi which had been adapted by Michael Morton from the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . Trevor reprised the role of Poirot twice, in Black Coffee and Lord Edgware Dies . Trevor said once that he was probably cast as Poirot simply because he could do a French accent. Albert Finney Edit Albert Finney played Poirot in 1974 in the cinematic version of Murder on the Orient Express . His portrayal was considered by many to be the definitive Poirot until David Suchet took up the role. It was a very faithful adaptation of the novel and was, at the time, the most successful British film ever made. It received the stamp of approval from Agatha Christie herself. Finney is, so far, the only actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for playing Poirot, though he did not win. Peter Ustinov Peter Ustinov played Poirot a total of six times, starting with Death on the Nile (1978). He reprised the role in Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Appointment With Death (1988).

Christie was less sanguine about Ustinov's portrayal, given that Poirot, written as short, slim, and with coal-black hair, bore little resemblance to the tall, heavy, grey-haired Ustinov. When Christie's daughter, Rosalind Hicks , observed to Ustinov that Poirot did not look like him, Ustinov quipped "He does now!" He appeared again as Poirot in three made-for-television movies: Thirteen at Dinner (1985), Dead Man's Folly (1986), and Murder in Three Acts (1986). The first of these was based on Lord Edgware Dies and was made by Warner Brothers. It also starred Faye Dunaway and David Suchet as Inspector Japp, just before he himself played the famous detective. (Ironically, it is reputed that David Suchet highlights his performance as Japp to be "possibly the worst performance of [his] career.") Other Edit Tony Randall , The Alphabet Murders (1965) (Film, also known as The ABC Murders). This was more a satire on Poirot than a straightforward adaptation, and was greatly changed from the original.

It turned the sharp and observant detective into a blundering buffoon who solves the case almost by accident. Television Edit David Suchet has starred in many Hercule Poirot films and four new ones – Cards on the Table, The Mystery of the Blue Train, After the Funeral and Taken At The Flood – were shown in the UK in March/April 2006. For more information about the ongoing UK television series starring David Suchet , see Agatha Christie's Poirot . Other Ian Holm , Murder by the Book, 1986 (TV) Alfred Molina , Murder on the Orient Express, 2001 (TV) Animated Edit In 2004, NHK (a Japanese TV network) produced a 39 episode anime series titled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple , as well as a manga series under the same title released in 2005. The series, adapting several of the best-known Poirot and Marple stories, ran from July 4, 2004 through May 15, 2005, and is now being shown as re-runs on NHK and other networks in Japan.

Poirot was voiced by Satomi Kōtarō and Miss Marple was voiced by Yachigusa Kaoru. Brit-streaming at DVDTalk.com A Farewell to Hercule Poirot Poirot-Curtains by Greg Bakun After over a month to try and figure out what to write to say farewell to Hercule Poirot, I have finally managed to pull myself together and look at the very final episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot. Poirot is a timeless character but to me, it will always be definitively played by David Suchet. Here is my review of his final episode. Streaming News Once again, Agatha Christie's Poirot is available on AcornTV with the final series being an exclusive. What is also fun is to check out a special Q&A with David Suchet about the entire series which is also an exclusive to the service. October 6th, Acorn TV features the U.S. Premiere of ANZAC Girls, the new hit Australian six-part miniseries based on the true and largely unknown stories of five brave nurses during World War I. AcornTV will debut a new episode every Monday through Nov. 10th.

After a hugely successful decade on television, the series finale and the previous 22 feature-length mysteries of Agatha Christie's Marple starring Julia McKenzie are now available to watch any time on AcornTV , the premier British TV streaming service. In Endless Night, Miss Marple meets a handsome chauffeur who purchases a house with a curse on it for his new bride, but fairy tales do not always have happy endings. Series leaving AcornTV on 10/5/14: The Last Detective: Starring Peter Davison (Highly Recommended) Doctor Zhivago The Science of Measurement: 3 episode documentary Beat Girl: 2013 Drama. 5 episodes Inspector Morris: Series 5-8. 18 episodes. Lovejoy: Series 4 13 episodes Brit-Streaming Spotlight Curtain: Poirot's Last Case I know I am not the only person who gets emotional when a TV series I like comes to an end. We have gown to care about the characters and sometimes just seeing them is enough to make me happy. It becomes even harder when the series has been around for a long time; sometimes it’s hard to say goodbye.

This is the case with the very last episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot. I know I have been talking about this for a long time but this is a really big deal. This iteration of Agatha Christie’s Poirot has been around for 25 years. It hasn’t been 25 solid years of episodes. The series had 13 seasons spread out over 25 years. There was a sizeable chunk of time between Series 6 and 7 where no new episodes were made. There were even rumors a few years ago that David Suchet, Poirot himself, was thinking of retiring from the role before all the stories had been adapted for television. I think this was only a rumor. Yet, how does one say goodbye to a character that we have been watching for years? I think the greatest achievement a TV series can have is being allowed to have a final episode. Final episodes of TV series take the form of many things. It ties up loose ends or sometimes marries off a characters. For Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case really does become the final adventure for Poirot and it is a fitting, if not sad, ending for the series.

There are some things we do not know about this story, even by the time the episode ends. The episode takes place at Styles which is where Hastings and Poirot re-aquintaited themselves in the first Poirot novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I love how last episodes tie in with established continuity of the series. This is only the second time we have seen Hastings in many years. It’s the first time we have seen him since The Big Four but the question is how many years have passed between The Big Four and Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case? Poirot is aged and his health is rapidly deteriorating. The once vibrant Belgium detective is now wheel-chair bound and is suffering from advanced arthritis. Poirot actually calls in Hastings to help him. Poirot himself cannot get around anymore to investigate. He needs Hastings to be his eyes and ears; Hasting needs to be the investigator. What is Hastings investigating? There is a murderer at Styles yet no one has been murdered, at least from what can be obvious. This person who is the murderer is someone Poirot has been tracking for some time. Styles is now a guest hotel but it is also a dark and mysterious place especially at night.

There are many things hiding in the shadows. As far as Poirot himself, the man is now extremely short tempered and difficult. His voice is weak yet his brain is still sharp. He is not the man that we have watched for the past 25 years. It is an extreme departure from what we have seen of the detective, but a series that has been around for so long deserves to do this to its character. Captain Hastings is very different too. Obviously he is older but is he is mourning the sudden death of his wife. This was actually a very sad concept for me. I have always adored Captain Hastings portrayed by Hugh Fraser. He is a naïve gentleman. Very innocent but a character that is from a bygone era that doesn’t exist anymore. The fact that real life caught up to Captain Hastings with the death of his wife brings a real bit of formality to this episode. This cemented the fact, to me, that this was the end of the series. It’s not like we saw his wife in the series but knowing how happy Hastings was to be married and to suddenly lose her was a major tragedy to him. Hastings might be the one that has the worse time of just about anyone in the episode.

He is back at Styles to see his old friend Poirot who is utterly awful to him. Poirot ruthlessly abuses Hastings verbally. Hastings has always been a bit thick but his heart was always in the right place. That is actually hard to watch. Hastings went to see Poirot but another reason for visiting Styles is to see his youngest daughter Judith who is there assisting Dr. John Franklin. Judith is Hastings favorite but he is finding that she is not very happy with him and over the course of the episode he sees that she is making life choices that Hastings simply does not agree with for his daughter. Because of what is happening around him and how his life has changed, we see a weathered and older Hastings that is kind of sad to see. It is not the same character we see at the beginning of the series all those years ago. The type of villain Poirot is after in this story is like one that he has not run into before in his journeys. This is a killer that is not killing people in the traditional sense and that is what makes this story very interesting.

The problem is that no matter how cool this premise is, the execution of how this killer is realized and the killer’s motives are actually pretty weak for this story. There is an idea that Poirot needs to take care of this person to save lives but how it actually comes about and how the killer acts is completely unbelievable to me. There is a lot of coincidence for the killer to be able to get to his victims. How Poirot works it out is great but the reason and the method the killer uses is completely unbelievable. The good news is that this episode is very faithful to the original novel but this is one instance that I wish some of this would have been bolstered a little more to give the killer stronger motives and means to inflict the punishment on the victims. Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case was published in 1975 but was written in the 1940s. This was originally written during World War II. It is probably really hard for many of us, mainly us Yankees, to understand that Agatha Christie as well as manly who lived in the UK feared for their lives during the war. There was a constant fear of invasion or just death.

Christie wanted to have a proper end for her Belgium detective and wrote this novel and had it locked away until she felt the time was right for the novel to be published or possibly until after her death. Agatha Christie died in 1976 though she gave her permission for the novel to be published in 1975. Her final novel she wrote of Poirot was Elephants Can Remember in 1972. The novel for Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case itself is a bit of a curiosity since it was written in the 1940s and before it was published there were many more Poirot novels, this story makes no reference to them because they weren’t written yet. As with the other episodes of the final series, this is exclusively available on Acorn TV . This is the only way to see this amazing series conclude. Of course this is one of many series available on the service to watch. I have been on AcornTV multiple times just to watch these final episodes again and again. I actually started to write this article about a month ago; it is really overdue. The problem was for me to put into words the end of this series.

I literally grew up with Agatha Christie’s Poirot. When it started in 1989, I was 14 years old. I was not a fan of these type of series. It seemed the location and settings from the 1930s made it seem out of date. This series was still going strong when my personal tastes in television changed and I started to really enjoy this series. Once I started to get back into it, I went out of my way to track down every episode and watch it. Now, as we come to the end of the series, I am feeling rather melancholy over the fact the little Belgium detective who uses his little grey cells to solve cases is at an end. Then, I remembered, I can watch them whenever I want thanks to the Blu-ray sets and it being available on Acorn TV . That makes it easier. Coming Soon Next time I want to watch something that has been on my list of programs to watch for some time. I will take a look at The Field of Blood. It stars Jayd Johnson, David Morrisey and some guy who is now some doctor on TV...oh yeah, Peter Capaldi. This series looks great and I am really looking forward to it.

Like what you see? Hate it? Have questions of comments? Send us an e-mail and tell us what you think! Archives Poirot's Obituary Poirot's Obituary Poirot's Obituary Poirot's Obituary Hercule Poirot was the first fictional character ever to receive front page news coverage in the New York Times (in this case, it happened to be his obituary). The article appeared on the front page August 6, 1975. The headline read: "Hercule Poirot Is Dead; Famed Belgian Detective; Hercule Poirot, the Detective, Dies". The article starts thus: "Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective who became internationally famous, has died in England. His age was unknown." Regarding his health, the reporter Thomas Lask said: "The news of his death, given by Dame Agatha, was not unexpected. Word that he was near death reached here last May." Poirot's last novel "Curtain" was released to the public 2 months later on October 15.

The novel "Curtain" was written, along with Jane Marple's last story "Sleeping Murder", in the mid-1940's to be published at a later date. Included with the news article was a reprint of a portrait of Poirot. It was painted by the British painter W. Smithson Broadhead (1888-1960) for "The Sketch" magazine in 1923. All original content © 2016, Hercule Poirot Central. This site is not endorsed by Agatha Christie Ltd. or the Acorn Media Group. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case Audiobook | Agatha Christie | Audible.com "Can it really be the end...?" As Poirot's body has begun to fail him, he has called on his friend, Hastings, to act as his eyes and ears throughout this unusual investigation. Poirot was not called in to investigate on this one; instead, after studying five previous murders, he has called Hastings in to help him prevent the mysterious "X" from killing yet again. We are treated to a final cast of unusual characters as the story progresses.

Hastings is constantly reminded by his Belgian friend that he makes poor use of his brain as he tries to identify the unknown "X"; only Poirot seems to have determined the identity of X and he is not willing to share this information even with Hastings. We are also introduced to one of Hastings' grown daughters in this tale. As Poirot's final exercise in the use of his gray cells began to wind down, I felt a pang of regret that Poirot's life was coming to an end and felt for Hastings as his life must move on without his friend.

Question: In 1975, ‘Curtain’ was the last novel starring which character?
Answer: Hercule Poirot