Agatha Christie’s Best Poirot Mysteries Other than Orient Express

OrientExpress_NovelSuspects

I was eight when I first read Agatha Christie. I found a copy of And Then There Were None on the returns cart at the library where my mom worked. The image on the cover was an ominous cliff with a spooky face, with a mansion on top of it. That was enough for me to check it out. And from that very first book, I was hooked.

I read all of Agatha Christie’s books that year. And again when I was 18. And again when I was 30. That’s sixty-six detective novels, fourteen short story collections, and her six novels written under a pseudonym. I not only own the books she wrote, but over two dozen books about her. I have seem dozens of adaptations of her works, multiple times, including the Poirot series with David Suchet. (Spoiler: He really was the best Poirot.)

So I think that I qualify as an amateur Christie expert. Out of Christie’s detectives Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Tommy and Tuppence, Poirot is my favorite, with his stuffy demeanor, his outrageous mustaches, and his little grey cells. So I feel confident about picking the best Poirot books. Everyone knows Murder on the Orient Express, made notable again by a recent film adaptation from Kenneth Branagh. But that’s just one of the little Belgian detective’s great cases. He appeared in 33 novels, 2 plays, and more than 50 short stories published between 1920 and 1975. Here are 10 of the books that best represent Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

 

Liberty Hardy is a Book Riot senior contributing editor and velocireader in the great state of Maine, where she reads 500-600 books a year and lives with her three cats, who hate to read.