“My name is Hercule Poirot, and I am probably the greatest detective in the world”.

– Agatha Christie, The Mystery of the Blue Train. 

One of our newly acquired detective and thriller titles this month is Sophie Hannah’s latest novel, which features one of the most beloved detectives of all time, Hercule Poirot. Hercule Poirot’s Silent night is set during the Christmas season and is a fabulous addition to the Hercule Poirot body of work.

The Belgian detective was of course created by Agatha Christie and features in thirty-three of the queen of crime’s novels, not to mention two plays and fifty-one short stories. He first saw the light of day in Agatha’s first published novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in 1920 and written during World War One. Agatha Christie served as a nurse in WW1 and was witness to a large number of well-educated Belgian refugees sheltering in Britain at the time, one of the key incidents that helped create the master detective.

Agatha Christie also acknowledged the influence of Arthur Conan Doyle’s works on Poirot’s creation and development, especially in his early years. Poirot’s name was derived from two other fictional detectives, Marie Belloc Lowndes’ Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans’ Monsieur Poiret.

The detective has proved a firm favourite with many film directors and television producers for many generations. He has also proved a very popular role to play with some of the most famous actors of their times, such as Charles Laughton, Orson Welles, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, David Suchet and Kenneth Branagh, to name but a few.

Interestingly, Agatha Christie quickly found Poirot to be an “insufferable” character and is on record as saying she felt that he was a “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep”. However due to his great popularity with her writing public she refused to kill him off.

The library holds copies of all the Hercule Poirot books written by Agatha Christie, as well as many of the works by other writers that feature the famous detective. You can find more information on these titles here.

Hercule Poirot’s Silent night / Hannah, Sophie
“It’s 19 December 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are called to investigate the murder of a man in the apparent safe haven of a Norfolk hospital ward. Catchpool’s mother, the irrepressible Cynthia, insists that Poirot stays in a crumbling mansion by the coast, so that they can all be together for the festive period while Poirot solves the case. Cynthia’s friend Arnold is soon to be admitted to that same hospital and his wife is convinced he will be the killer’s next victim, though she refuses to explain why. Poirot has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders, if he is to escape from this nightmare scenario and get home in time for Christmas.” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an eBook.

The Golden Gate / Chua, Amy
“In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs. A rich industrialist with enemies among the anarchist factions on the far left, Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of groups. But strangely, Sullivan’s investigation brings up the specter of another tragedy at the Claremont, ten years earlier: the death of seven-year-old Iris Stafford, a member of the Bainbridge family, one of the wealthiest in all of San Francisco. Some say she haunts the Claremont still. The many threads of the case keep leading Sullivan back to the three remaining Bainbridge heiresses, now adults…” (Adapted from Catalogue)

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