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's Christmas of newly created characters. Mathew Prichard himself, grandson of Agatha Christie, was quoted by Télérama as calling it the best TV adaptation he had seen. "Hercule Poirot's Christmas" was adapted for radio by BBC Radio 4, featuring Peter Sallis as Poirot. This was the second adaptation of a Poirot story for radio, aired 24 December 1986. Hercule Poirot's Christmas Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 19 December 1938 (although the first edition is copyright dated 1939). It retailed at seven shillings and