Hercule Poirot met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles". It is clear that Hastings and Poirot are already friends when they meet in Chapter 2 of the novel, as Hastings tells Cynthia that he has not seen him for "some years". Particulars such as the date of 1916 for the case and that Hastings had met Poirot in Belgium, are given in "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case", Chapter 1. After that case, Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service and undertook cases for the
Hercule Poirot as Inspector Japp, just before Suchet began to play Poirot. David Suchet considers his performance as Japp to be "possibly the worst performance of [his] career". In 2017, Kenneth Branagh directed and starred in a 2017 film adaptation of "Murder on the Orient Express". Branagh has been confirmed to return for a new film version of "Death on the Nile", set for a 2019 release. David Suchet starred as Poirot in the ITV series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" from 1989 until June 2013, when he announced that he was bidding farewell to the role. "No one could've guessed then that the