Tome Thursday: Hercule Poirot

Hello everyone!

Okay, so, there is no one book titled 'Hercule Poirot'. But. There is a full SERIES of them, written by the brilliant Agatha Christie, and all of them now brought to the small screen by the amazing powers that be who had enlisted the incomparable David Suchet into the role of our favourite Belgian detective (even when I say it right, I can hear the dainty little cough that explains 'I am not French. I am Belgian.') I remember seeing these books when I was little, and my mom was putting them on the shelf, and in my country they were printed in hardback, one by one, and in very lively colours, all the spectrum of a rainbow I think. I have them in my room now (because our house is as full of books as a library is), and I still smile every time I look their way. They just bring back so many memories. 

When I got my Kobo E-Reader as a degree present, I realized I could expand my personal library to electronic versions, and one of the first things I did was get my hands on the electronic library of Agatha Christie, snagging her books and making sure that the approximately forty ones dealing with Hercule Poirot's cases were definitely included. Because I do love the little egg-head.

Hercule Poirot, former chief of the Belgian police, relocates to England sometime during the Great War, and continues his amazing work there. During his tenure as detective, he is usually accompanies by Captain Hastings, allies with Inspector Japp of the Scotland Yard, and has, for some time, a very competent secretary, Miss Lemon, who is later replaced by a valet, George.

These characters make up a very pretty tableau because they're all so wildly different from one another. Japp is your typical Englishman, Hastings somewhat the same only he was schooled at Eton so there are very firm traces of that in his characteristics, Miss Lemon is the woman you need to make sure your life is the way it should be, and George is the butler everyone wants.

And then there is Poirot, of course, who tends to sit back and employ 'the little grey cells', ensuring the cases Japp presents him with are solved.

It doesn't get any better than that.

Christie created a masterpiece with Poirot, and some of the classic titles one thinks of when she's mentioned are Murder on the Orient Express, Murder in Mesopotamia, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Poirot's first English case), Murder on the Nile, Death in the Clouds ... there are approximately forty books devoted solely to Hercule Poirot, and ITV now has them all under their belt in a television series (Agatha Christie's Poirot). David Suchet has filmed them all, but we also remember Peter Ustinov as an actor who played our Belgian detective well.

Guardian

I often wonder what would happen if someone put Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot into the same room together. THAT would probably be hilarious. Add to it Hastings and Watson, and you have a sitcom waiting to happen.

Have you read any Agatha Christie books? Which ones did you like?

xx