Hercule Poirot available to solve mysteries at an English country house. At the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy towards the Belgians, since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's "casus belli" for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasised the "Rape of Belgium". Poirot first appeared in "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" (published in 1920) and exited in "Curtain" (published in 1975). Following the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to receive an obituary on the front page of "The New York Times". By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot "insufferable", and, by
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