Christie’s Wartime Hero: Peacetime Killer

This chapter focuses on the motif of the criminal ex-serviceman in Agatha Christie’s writing. Unusually, it takes an inter-disciplinary perspective, utilising criminological literature to engage with Christie’s crime fiction. Focusing on a selection of Christie’s Poirot novels, the chapter uses a typography to demonstrate Christie’s uncommon rejection of the hero motif, so beloved among commentators. Through these five types - the dull and irritable, the deceitful, the physically or mentally damaged and the violent ex-serviceman – it is evident that Christie had no time for hero-worship. Rather than wartime military service being viewed as evidence of good character, Christie is able to subvert the mainstream idealised vision of heroism, into something far darker.