I suppose it is really quite unoriginal, and maybe old fashioned, to say that one of my most favourite fictional detectives is Hercule Poirot.
Still, there is something about this quite fastidious, sometimes feline-like, but certainly not French little detective. With stiff little moustaches decorating his egg-shaped head, he has cut a distinctive figure in the world of detective fiction for just over one-hundred years. Ever since he appeared in Agatha Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in 1920, he has earned his place amongst the best and most recognisable of crime fiction's most famous detectives.
But his distinctive appearance and fussy attitude would be nothing if it weren't for those "little grey cells", which were put to such great use over the course of five decades in Christie's original novels and short stories featuring the detective.
In 1941, Evil Under the Sun, was published; Poirot's second decade as depicted by the Queen of Crime . And this novel, despite Christie's burgeoning dislike for the character, proves that his powers of detection and desire for justice had not waned with the passing decades.
In this mystery, a body lies upon a beach – the body of Arlena Marshall. She is bronzed, and appears like any other sunbathing beauty holidaying in the area, stretched out with flesh bare to the sun. However, upon closer inspection, it's plain to see that Arlena Marshall is not sunbathing. She is dead. The life strangled out of her by some unknown individual.
A mad, lone, and opportunistic attacker? Or someone known to the victim?
Other guests, holidaying at the same hotel as Arlena Marshall, had been quick to consider Arlena as wicked, a temptress. But it seems, as Poirot had suspected, she was always much more likely to be a victim than any kind of fiend.
And so, the little Belgian seeker of truth and justice begins investigating . . .
I suppose that it is his desire for truth and justice, rather than a slavish loyalty to the law, which partly makes Poirot such an attractive fictional figure. As evidenced in other stories featuring the detective, perhaps most notably Murder on the Orient Express, he does deviate from the rule of law to strive to do what is right.
And, a character that strives to do that can't ever really go out of fashion. An odd little hero, striving for what is right in a unjust world.
Christie can be considered cosy crime, but she did point a finger at, or at least hint towards, some of the darkness in the world.
I began reading Christie when I was a young teenager, and tore through her stories at a furious pace. Finishing one book, finding another, and so on. As an adult, I return to find that, unlike many things which seemed like a good idea in adolescence but which, in retrospect, were always pretty horrid, Christie's mysteries are still a joy.
I urge you to return too. And if you are yet to discover Poirot, and other of Christie's creations, oh, how I envy you!
You can purchase a copy of Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie here.
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