Hercule Poirot

Belgian detective Hercule Poirot applies his famous 'little grey cells' to murders across England, Europe, and the Middle East. Vain, fastidious, and brilliant, Poirot solves cases through pure logic while his companion Captain Hastings narrates many of the early adventures.

By Agatha Christie · 33 books · 1920–present

By The Editorial Team · Last reviewed April 2026

What is the Hercule Poirot series about?

Hercule Poirot is a retired Belgian police officer living in England who cannot stop solving murders. He is vain about his moustache, obsessive about symmetry, and absolutely brilliant at reading human nature through pure logic. Agatha Christie introduced him in 1920 and wrote thirty-three novels about him over fifty-five years, making him one of the most enduring characters in fiction — and quite possibly the most imitated detective after Sherlock Holmes.

Captain Hastings narrates many of the early novels as a well-meaning Watson figure, cheerfully missing every clue that Poirot spots in seconds. The supporting cast shifts over the decades: Inspector Japp provides the official police presence, Ariadne Oliver serves as Christie’s wry self-portrait, and a parade of secretaries, valets, and companions drift through Poirot’s immaculately ordered life. But the constant is Poirot himself — fussy, vain, theatrical, and devastatingly precise.

The series spans country houses, luxury trains, Nile steamers, archaeological digs in the Middle East, and cramped London flats. The settings are often glamorous, but the crimes are intimate: inheritance disputes, love affairs gone wrong, long-nursed grudges. What holds it all together is Poirot’s method. He does not dust for fingerprints or chase suspects through alleys. He sits, he thinks, he uses his little grey cells, and he sees what everyone else has missed. Christie famously grew tired of him — she called him a detestable, bombastic creature — but readers never did, and his death in Curtain made the front page of the New York Times.

Should I read the Hercule Poirot series in order?

The novels work well as standalones, with two firm exceptions. The Mysterious Affair at Styles introduces Poirot and Hastings and establishes the world, and Curtain is the final novel — a deliberate mirror of the first — that must be read last. Between those two bookends, you can move freely without confusion.

That said, reading in publication order lets you watch Christie’s craft sharpen in real time. The early 1920s novels are competent but conventional. By the 1930s she was producing masterpiece after masterpiece: Orient Express, Death on the Nile, The A.B.C. Murders, and Five Little Pigs represent her at an extraordinary peak. The later novels lose some energy — Christie was writing into her eighties — but even the weaker books contain at least one brilliant misdirection.

If you want a single entry point, Murder on the Orient Express is the obvious choice, though Five Little Pigs is arguably the better novel.

Who will enjoy the Hercule Poirot series?

Anyone who loves a fair-play whodunit where the clues are all there if you are clever enough to spot them. Christie plays scrupulously fair with her readers — every solution is logical, every misdirection is constructed rather than imposed — and the satisfaction of being outwitted by her plotting is the series’ core pleasure. If you enjoy Lord Peter Wimsey for the golden age style or Hawthorne and Horowitz for the modern take on the same tradition, Poirot is essential reading.

These are puzzle mysteries first and foremost. Do not come here looking for psychological depth or social realism — come here to be fooled by a writer who understood misdirection better than anyone in the history of the genre, and a detective whose ego is surpassed only by his accuracy.

Publication Order

1
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
A wealthy woman is poisoned in her country estate, and a peculiar Belgian refugee staying in the village applies his grey cells to his very first case.
2
The Murder on the Links (1923)
A desperate letter summons Poirot to France, but the man who wrote it is found dead in a golf course bunker before he can explain why.
3
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
A retired manufacturer is stabbed in his locked study, and the village doctor narrates Poirot's investigation in a novel that broke every rule of detective fiction.
4
The Big Four (1927)
Poirot faces an international conspiracy of four criminal masterminds bent on world domination, in Christie's most thriller-like novel.
5
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
An American heiress is strangled aboard the luxury Blue Train to the Riviera, and her fabulous rubies have vanished.
6
Peril at End House (1932)
A young woman on the Cornish coast has survived three apparent accidents, and Poirot becomes convinced someone is trying to kill her.
7
Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
An actress publicly announces she wants her husband dead, and hours later he is found murdered — but she has an unbreakable alibi.
8
Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
A passenger is stabbed to death on a snowbound train, and Poirot discovers that every fellow traveller had a motive to kill him.
9
Three Act Tragedy (1935)
A clergyman drops dead at a dinner party from no apparent cause, and when it happens again at a second party, Poirot sees the shape of a murderous performance.
10
Death in the Clouds (1935)
A French moneylender is killed mid-flight from Paris to London, and every passenger in the rear cabin is a suspect.
11
The A.B.C. Murders (1936)
A serial killer taunts Poirot with letters announcing murders in alphabetical order, each victim found beside an ABC railway guide.
12
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
The wife of an archaeologist is found bludgeoned at a remote dig site in Iraq, and the closed circle of suspects includes her haunted past.
13
Cards on the Table (1936)
A collector of murderers invites four suspects and four detectives to a bridge party, and the host is stabbed while the game is in play.
14
Dumb Witness (1937)
A wealthy spinster writes to Poirot about an attempt on her life, but by the time the letter arrives she is already dead.
15
Death on the Nile (1937)
A beautiful heiress is shot dead on a Nile steamer during her honeymoon, and everyone aboard the boat had a reason to want her gone.
16
Appointment with Death (1938)
A tyrannical American matriarch is found dead at an archaeological site in Petra, and her terrorized family are the obvious suspects.
17
Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938)
A wealthy patriarch summons his estranged family for Christmas, and on the holiday eve he is found with his throat cut in a locked room.
18
Sad Cypress (1940)
A young woman stands trial for poisoning her rival in love, and Poirot must find the truth before the jury delivers its verdict.
19
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)
Poirot's dentist is found shot dead after their appointment, and the investigation spirals into politics, espionage, and identity theft.
20
Evil Under the Sun (1941)
A glamorous actress is strangled on a secluded beach at a Devon island hotel, and Poirot must untangle a web of alibis and affairs.
21
Five Little Pigs (1942)
A young woman asks Poirot to prove her dead mother did not poison her father sixteen years ago, and he reconstructs the crime from five witnesses.
22
The Hollow (1946)
A brilliant doctor is shot dead by the swimming pool at a country house weekend, and the tableau of suspects looks almost too perfectly staged.
23
Taken at the Flood (1948)
A war widow's new marriage upends a family's inheritance expectations, and when a stranger arrives claiming a connection, murder follows.
24
Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)
A charwoman is bludgeoned for her savings — or so it seems — and Poirot suspects the convicted lodger is innocent.
25
After the Funeral (1953)
At a family funeral, one sister blurts out that the deceased was murdered, and the next day she is found killed with a hatchet.
26
Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
A string of bizarre thefts at a London student hostel turns sinister when a resident is found poisoned.
27
Dead Man's Folly (1956)
Ariadne Oliver summons Poirot to a village fete where her murder hunt game feels too real, and a girl playing the victim is found actually dead.
28
Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
Smuggled jewels from a Middle Eastern revolution end up hidden at an exclusive girls' school, and two teachers are murdered before Poirot arrives.
29
The Clocks (1963)
A blind woman's sitting room is found full of clocks she does not own and a dead man she has never met.
30
Third Girl (1966)
A distressed young woman tells Poirot she may have committed a murder but cannot remember, then vanishes before he can help.
31
Hallowe'en Party (1969)
A child boasts at a Halloween party that she once witnessed a murder, and hours later she is found drowned in the apple-bobbing bucket.
32
Elephants Can Remember (1972)
Ariadne Oliver asks Poirot to investigate an old double death — was it the husband who shot the wife, or the wife who shot the husband?
33
Curtain (1975)
An elderly Poirot returns to Styles, where it all began, to confront a killer who has never technically committed a crime.