Hercule Poirot, created by Agatha Christie, is the fictional detective who investigates Murder on the Orient Express.
Poirot is a Belgian former police officer who becomes a private detective. He relies on logic, psychology and his famously described “little grey cells” rather than physical force. In Murder on the Orient Express, a passenger is found murdered during a train journey, and Poirot must examine the conflicting accounts of everyone aboard.
The character first appeared in Christie’s 1920 novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Across Christie’s fiction, he became one of detective literature’s most recognisable investigators, known for his waxed moustache, immaculate clothing, precise habits and occasionally comic vanity.
Readers sometimes confuse Poirot with Miss Marple, another Christie detective. Miss Marple is an English village resident who uses her knowledge of human behaviour, whereas Poirot is a professional investigator with a more formal, analytical method. Sherlock Holmes is another frequent mix-up, but he was created by Arthur Conan Doyle, not Christie.