'The ABC Murders' Gives Us A Poirot For The 21st Century

Agatha Christie stands as England's best selling author of all time, with a library of 66 detective novels written over her lifetime. Of all her characters, none stands quite so tall in the public imagination as Hercule Poirot, the detective of little grey cells fame. For 25 years, this role was dominated by David Suchet, who played the title character in ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot. His name became synonymous with the character. For an entire generation of mystery lovers, including myself, he is the definitive Poirot.

Suchet retired his mustaches in 2013. And it took a couple of years before the BBC began to test the waters with new Christie adaptations from writer Sarah Phelps. Her first adaptation, And Then There Were None, starring Poldark's Aidan Turner and Game of Thrones' Charles Dance, was a smash hit. The BBC then followed by commissioning a slew of others, including The Witness For The Prosecution, which aired in 2018, and now The ABC Murders.

Phelps' first two adaptations had the benefit of being one-off mysteries, with none of Christie's regular detectives at the helm. The ABC Murders, on the other hand, is a Poirot story, the first one this new series of adaptations has tackled, and as it is considered one of Christie's most perplexing puzzles, it arrives with big shoes to fill.