After watching A Haunting in Venice, I wanted more Poirot and while going through my library’s collection, I came across Agatha Christie’s Poirot. I’ve heard of the author, Mark Aldridge, on a Christie podcast so I felt fairly confident borrowing this.

As indicated by the title, this book follows Poirot through the books as well as the movie, television, and drama adaptations. Aldridge chooses to organise the book in chronological order, putting each entry when the story or adaptation comes out and grouping everything by decade. The book is very comprehensive, starting with The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1921 and ending with a brief discussion of the 2022 adaptation of Death on the Nile (the discussion has to exclude talk on the film’s merits since the book was published in 2020.

Given that the book spans about a hundred years, I definitely finished it feeling like I knew a great deal more about Poirot. At the same time, the chronological order did feel rather disjointed – because lots of time has elapsed between the book and adaptations, we read about them (as some books are adapted more than once!) as individual entries in various chapters. At times, I wished the book ordered things by chronological order of the Poirot books and then discussed all adaptations within because that could really help me see the differences between adaptations. That might have helped the book feel more focused – it’s not really a biography of Poirot, but it’s not really about Christie either, so at times the book felt like a Poirot encyclopedia, skimming over the main points of each entry, instead of bringing it all together in a deep dive into the character.

But although the book feels scattershot, Aldridge brings a sense of enthusiasm and love for the character that is palpable. I’ve only watched a smattering of movie adaptations (mostly the recent ones) but after reading this, I would like to watch at least an episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot and see how Suchet is in the role, as well as try the Japanese adaptations – released under the title “Great Detective Akafuji Takashi”. And of course, I would like to read one of Sophie Hannah’s Poirot stories, given that she seems to have studied Christie’s oeuvre so closely that she managed to identify a suitable gap for a Poirot story to take place.

Other interesting things I learned while reading this include Christie’s slow change towards nostalgia and more sympathy for the elderly as she aged, as well as a newfound appreciation for her writing speed. According to Christie, “three months seems to me quite a reasonable time to complete a book if one can get right down to it.” No wonder there was Christie for Christmas!

Overall, Agatha Christie’s Poirot is a book that is aimed at the dedicated Poirot/Christie fan. Aldridge’s love for Poirot is infectious and I reckon that most fans will find a book they want to revisit or an adaptation they want to watch after reading this.