Hercule Poirot

Agatha Christie's fastidious Belgian detective has outlived nearly every rival in the genre, and this collection shows why. The novels and story collections gathered here include the cases that built his legend: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd with its notorious twist, The A.B.C. Murders, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. Poirot's method is the opposite of action, all order, psychology and those famous little grey cells.

Kenneth Branagh's recent films give the character a glossier, more brooding screen life, moving from the Orient Express to Egypt and on to a darker, supernatural-tinged Venice. Read alongside the prose, they make a useful argument about how much of Christie is plot machinery and how much is pure atmosphere.

The Hercule Poirot franchise spans 16 books, 3 films in the CrossBinge catalog.