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,
Agatha Christie's Poirot that the story was first published in book format in "The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories" (published in the United States in 1939). Although the story is now associated with Parker Pyne, it was included in the 2008 omnibus volume "Hercule Poirot: the Complete Short Stories", which was the first public association of the story with Hercule Poirot since the original Strand Magazine publication of 1936. Aside from "Poirot and the Regatta Mystery", the one authentic Hercule Poirot story not included in any form, whole or partial, in the "Agatha Christie's Poirot" series is the 1930 play "Black Coffee". Although