Character Review – Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot

Hey Guys, I am back with another post today regarding something many of you have asked me to tackle since the first time I told you guys that I like reading mystery novels. You have been continuously asking me to post about books written by Agatha Christie. Unfortunately, I hadn’t read any of her books and writing a post entirely dependant on what I have heard isn’t morally right nor is it my style. Fortunately, most of my time is spent idling and I am not at all busy. So I read two of her books!

After reading “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” and “The Murder on the Links” I consider myself qualified to comment on Hercule Poirot. So this is a character review. Firstly for all of you who don’t know, Agatha Christie is a very popular British Author, also known as “The Queen of Crime” who died in 1976. Yesterday was the 100th Anniversary of her first book – “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”. So this is a small tribute to her from my side.

Now, there are many people out there who say that she copied Arthur Conan Doyle and most of her characters are bad copies of Sherlock Holmes. To those people I say – Just shut up and don’t read if you don’t like. Clearing up these rumours I will say, “No, Agatha Christie is not at all copying Arthur Conan Doyle. Both of them have different writing styles and their characters have prowess in different fields. While Sherlock Holmes can perform unbelievable feats using The Science of Deduction and making a chain of logic, Hercule Poirot is a genius at the psychology of a crime and proving obvious theories wrong. According to me, both of them are the best detective characters in English Literature. This is just my opinion and if you think someone else is better, let’s debate in the comments section…”.

With that cleared up, let’s talk about what I thought of Hercule Poirot. So just for the context, his stories are narrated by Captain Arthur Hastings, who is said to have a lot of “potential” in the field of detective work. His friend Hercule Poirot is a private detective who works for the public and the police alike. He is a French-Speaking Belgian who hates to be mistaken as French. The one thing that I loved was the character detailing. The author’s attention to detail surprised me a lot, especially the occasional French phrases that made me able to finally use the translating feature on my Kindle, these phrases (“mon ami” has become a part of my regular vocabulary now :)) gives the reader a really good experience.

Another thing that I want to highlight is that in each of the books all the facts are pointing towards one person and Poirot proves all of them wrong and catches the real culprit. He has an uncanny ability to spot authentic clues and the ones that are planted. The literary expressions used in all of these books do make the reader realise that the story is based in a 20th Century setting. I myself love the modern-day setting used in Percy Jackson and Harry Potter but I can’t argue that Enid Blyton, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie don’t keep me engaged. Another attractive feature that I really loved about Hercule Poirot is the mysterious ways he works in. He spots seemingly unrelated clues with ease and then weaves a net of facts and theories around them to create an illusion about who the culprit is. Then as quick as you can say “Hercule” he breaks all of it down and uses the same clues to catch a rather unsuspecting person. Me being a person who regards himself as spotting right through most of the mystery books found this habit of his rather humbling in a good way.

That was it for the character review of Hercule Poirot. I hope that you guys are discovering new authors and characters by reading these posts. I am experimenting with humour and professionalism. Tell me which one suits me better – the humour I used in The Aru Shah post or the professionalism I have done in this post. Also thanks a lot for the love and support, I can see all of it in the Analytics. Hope you liked this post! With that said, this is me, signing off until next time. Peace.