Hercule Poirot sort of obsessive-compulsive" in Poirot. As mentioned in "Curtain" and "The Clocks", he is fond of classical music, particularly Mozart and Bach. In "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", Poirot operates as a fairly conventional, clue-based and logical detective; reflected in his vocabulary by two common phrases: his use of "the little grey cells" and "order and method". Hastings is irritated by the fact that Poirot sometimes conceals important details of his plans, as in "The Big Four". In this novel, Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax. This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels,
Recurring characters in the Hercule Poirot stories of the deductions Poirot makes, he never doubts nor discounts them (as, for instance, Japp initially might), no matter how fantastical. "The Man in the Brown Suit" is perhaps the only novel in which the emotional side of Colonel Race's nature has been given consideration. It gives depth to his personality. In the 1978 film of "Death on the Nile" Colonel Race was played by David Niven. In the same book's 2004 TV adaptation for the television series "Agatha Christie's Poirot", he was played by James Fox. As Fox was unavailable for the 2006 adaptation of "Cards on the Table"