Word: poirot
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...Poirot: deceased. Maigret: retired. Martin Beck, Commander Gideon, Inspector West: gone, all gone with the recent deaths of their creators. Of the old breed, only Nero Wolfe is still doing business at the same old stand, his orchidaceous town house in Manhattan, backed and fronted as always by the ineffable Archie Goodwin. Like his corpulent hero, Author Rex Stout, 89, continues to confound the actuarial tables-and his followers. In this latest outing, Stout ups the stakes of the game he plays with readers. Three-quarters of the way through, Narrator Archie realizes the identity of the criminal and concedes...
This is the book that Agatha Christie wrote 30-odd years ago in which her legendary detective, Hercule Poirot, dies. She had wanted it published after her death but recently changed her mind. The reason, according to her publishers, was the box office success of the film Murder on the Orient Express, which created a huge demand for Poirot that the author was too frail to meet with a new book...
...decade or so, Christie's plots have become slacker and there has been a tendency toward capriciousness, which always lay just behind her virtuosity. Curtain turns back time to her great days. For a setting it goes all the way back to Styles St. Mary, where she and Poirot, her most famous creation, started out. The manor, which was once occupied by gentry, has become during World War II a rather meanly run "guesthouse," but in other respects, it is positively miraculous how little has changed since 1916. Then, as later, the action begins with the arrival of Captain...
...gumshoe in patent-leather footwear, a master of misstatement, a helpless fanatic for crème de cacao, soft, sweet chocolate and Russian cigarettes. Still, Hercule Poirot, famed Belgian-born detective-and literary creation of Mystery Writer Dame Agatha Christie, 84 -never failed to solve a case in all of 37 novels. "An extraordinary little man!" Christie once wrote. "Height, five feet four inches, egg-shaped head carried a little to one side, eyes that shone green when he was excited, stiff military mustache, air of dignity immense!" Alas, last week Christie announced that the archetypal armchair detective...
Keystone Klutzes. His best friend, Lennart Kollberg, is nearly as important to the series as Beck. Kollberg is a paunchy, garrulous perfectionist. Like Holmes and Hercule Poirot, he deeply believes that "chance has no part in police work"-but his hunches tend to be inspired. These two are supported by a sturdy cast: Fredrik Melander, who has a prodigious memory and spends much of his day in the bathroom; Gunvald Larsson, an impetuous dropout from what he calls "upper-class riffraff;" Einar Rönn, who writes execrable official reports; Per Mänsonn, who is chief in Malm...