Hercule Poirot Books in Order: 2 Ways to Read

By Anna Marie CarrollMystery

Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective has been solving murders, disappearances, and impossible crimes for more than 100 years. With so many novels, short stories, and collections featuring Poirot, it can be hard to figure out how to read the Hercule Poirot books in order. This guide will help you find the best place to start and sort out every case along the way.

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Hercule Poirot Books in Order of Publication

The first way to read the Hercule Poirot books in order is by publication date, and this is the best place to start for most readers. Even though each novel works as its own mystery, Christie rewards readers who go in order with recurring characters, small callbacks, and subtle developments that are easier to appreciate when you follow Poirot’s cases from the beginning.

Hercule Poirot Books by Agatha Christie

The best place to begin is The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the first Hercule Poirot novel Agatha Christie published. It introduces Poirot through Captain Hastings and gives you a strong feel for his personality, methods, and the dynamic that helps define many of the early stories.

From there, the rest of Christie’s Poirot books are best read in publication order. That approach lets you follow the growth of the series naturally and experience the detective the way readers originally did.

  1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)    
  2. The Murder on the Links (1923)  
  3. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)      
  4. The Big Four (1927)    
  5. The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
  6. Black Coffee (1930 play; novelised by Charles Osborne in 1998)
  7. Peril at End House (1932)     
  8. Lord Edgware Dies (1933)    
  9. Murder on the Orient Express (1934)      
  10. Three Act Tragedy (1934)    
  11. Death in the Clouds (1935)   
  12. The A.B.C. Murders (1936)   
  13. Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)      
  14. Cards on the Table (1936)    
  15. Dumb Witness (1937)  
  16. Death on the Nile (1937)     
  17. Appointment with Death (1938)    
  18. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1938)  
  19. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940) 
  20. Sad Cypress (1940)     
  21. Evil Under the Sun (1941)    
  22. Five Little Pigs (1942)  
  23. The Hollow (1946)   
  24. Taken at the Flood (1948)    
  25. Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (1952)  
  26. After the Funeral (1953)      
  27. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955) 
  28. Dead Man’s Folly (1956)       
  29. Cat Among the Pigeons (1959) 
  30. The Clocks (1963)       
  31. Third Girl (1966) 
  32. Hallowe’en Party (1969)       
  33. Elephants Can Remember (1972)
  34. Curtain (1975)

Hercule Poirot Books by Sophie Hannah

The next Hercule Poiot books in order are the continuation novels written by Sophie Hannah. These stories take place before Curtain, but they’re best saved until after you’ve finished Agatha Christie’s original Poirot books so you can experience Christie’s version of the character first.

  1. The Monogram Murders (2014)
  2. Closed Casket (2016)
  3. The Mystery of Three Quarters (2018)
  4. The Killings at Kingfisher Hill (2020)
  5. Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night (2023)
  6. The Last Death of the Year (2025)

Hercule Poirot Collections

In addition to the main Poirot books, there are a few more collections and shorter works worth knowing about. Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly is a novella that was later expanded into Dead Man’s Folly, with the original version first published on its own in 2013.

The other titles below are short story collections featuring Agatha Christie’s work. Some stories do appear in more than one collection, so there is a bit of overlap, but these editions are still useful for readers who want to track down more of Poirot’s cases in different published formats.

  1. Poirot Investigates (1924)
  2. Murder in the Mews: Four Cases of Hercule Poirot (1937)
  3. The Labors of Hercules (1947)
  4. The Under Dog and Other Stories (1951)
  5. The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960)
  6. Double Sin and Other Stories (1961)      
  7. The Early Cases of Hercule Poirot (1974)
  8. The Casebook of Hercule Poirot (1984)
  9. The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories (1997)
  10. While the Light Lasts and Other Stories (1997)
  11. Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories (2013)
  12. Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly (2013)
  13. The Grey Cells of Mr. Poirot (2020)

Hercule Poirot Books in Chronological Order

The second way to read the Hercule Poirot books in order is by chronology. This section follows the official Agatha Christie Poirot reading list, which is why the Sophie Hannah continuation novels are not included below.

This chronology also includes the relevant short story collections. It is not the best starting point for most first-time readers, but it can be a fun and useful way for longtime fans to see how Poirot’s cases fit together across his life and to catch some of Christie’s smaller references to earlier mysteries.

Note: Agatha Christie’s official Hercule Poirot chronology differs slightly between UK and US editions because some short stories were collected under different titles in different markets. Since this site is US-based, the list below follows the official US reading list.

  1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
  2. Poirot Investigates (Short Story Collection)
  3. Poirot’s Early Cases (Short Story Collection)
  4. Double Sin and Other Stories (Short Story Collection)
  5. The Murder on the Links
  6. The Big Four
  7. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  8. The Under Dog and Other Stories (Short Story Collection)
  9. The Mystery of the Blue Train
  10. Peril at End House
  11. Lord Edgware Dies
  12. Murder in Mesopotamia
  13. Murder on the Orient Express
  14. Three Act Tragedy
  15. Death in the Clouds
  16. The ABC Murders
  17. Poirot and the Regatta Mystery
  18. Dumb Witness
  19. Cards on the Table
  20. The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories (Short Story Collection)
  21. Murder in the Mews (Short Story Collection)
  22. Death on the Nile
  23. The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories (Short Story Collection)
  24. Appointment with Death
  25. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
  26. The Labours of Hercules (Short Story Collection)
  27. Sad Cypress
  28. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
  29. Evil Under the Sun
  30. Five Little Pigs
  31. The Hollow
  32. Taken at the Flood
  33. Mrs. McGinty’s Dead
  34. After the Funeral
  35. Hickory Dickory Dock
  36. Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly
  37. Dead Man’s Folly
  38. Cat Among the Pigeons
  39. The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories (Short Story Collection)
  40. The Clocks
  41. Third Girl
  42. Hallowe’en Party
  43. Elephants Can Remember
  44. Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

About Hercule Poirot

Hercule Poirot may be small in stature, but his mind is anything but. Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective solves crimes through careful observation, logic, and what he famously calls his “little grey cells,” which is a big part of why he has remained so popular for generations of mystery readers.

Poirot is also one of the most recognizable characters in detective fiction, thanks not only to his brilliant mind but also to his enormous personality and unmistakable moustache. Across Christie’s novels, short stories, and many stage, film, television, and radio adaptations, Poirot has built a lasting legacy that places him alongside the most iconic fictional detectives ever created.

That lasting popularity helps explain one of the most unusual honors ever given to a fictional character: before the publication of his final case, The New York Times ran an obituary for Poirot on its front page. Even so, his story and influence have continued well beyond that moment, both through Christie’s work and through the many adaptations that followed.

Hercule Poirot Books FAQ

How many Hercule Poirot books did Agatha Christie write?

Agatha Christie wrote 33 original Hercule Poirot novels. She also wrote more than 50 short stories featuring Poirot, which is why the full list of his cases is much larger than the novel count alone.

Is Hercule Poirot French or Belgian?

Hercule Poirot is Belgian, not French. Christie describes him as a retired Belgian police officer who later becomes a world-famous private detective, which is also why he sometimes slips into French expressions throughout the books.

Was Hercule Poirot based on a real detective?

Not directly. Christie did not create Poirot as a portrait of one specific real person, but she was inspired by the Belgian refugees living in Torquay during the First World War and imagined a retired Belgian police officer as the detective for her first novel.

Is Hercule Poirot in every Agatha Christie book?

No. Christie wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections overall, and Poirot appears in 33 original novels and more than 50 short stories. He is her most famous detective, but he is only one part of her larger body of work.

Did Agatha Christie like Hercule Poirot?

Her feelings about Poirot seem to have been complicated. Christie’s family FAQ says one reason she grew frustrated with him was that publishers kept wanting more Poirot stories because they were the most popular, even when she had other ideas she wanted to pursue.

Looking for similar books in order?

If you want more mystery authors and reading-order guides like this one, start with my Mystery Books in Order index.

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