Hercule Poirot in literature Chocolate Box" but for some reason this reference was removed from the later editions. The Poirot books are still under copyright. "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" is now public domain in the US but will not become public domain in the UK until 2046 (70 years after Christie's death). Christie's grandson, Matthew Prichard, now owns the copyright to his grandmother's works. In 2014, the Christie estate authorised author Sophie Hannah to write a new Poirot book, "The Monogram Murders". "Short story collections listed as "ss"" Poirot settles down in London and opens a private detective agency. These are the short
Hercule Poirot of Roger Ackroyd". It has been said that the twelve cases related in "The Labours of Hercules" (1947) must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before "Roger Ackroyd", and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them. There is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" of the twenty-year gap between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one. If the "Labours" precede the events in "Roger Ackroyd", then the Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty