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Encyclopedia > The Big Four (novel)

The Big Four (published in 1927) is a detective fiction novel written by Agatha Christie. It features Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp. 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... DeFoes Robinson Crusoe, Newspaper edition published in 1719 A novel (from French nouvelle, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ... Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976), was a British crime fiction writer. ... David Suchet as Poirot Hercule Poirot (pronounced ) is a fictional character, the primary detective of Agatha Christies novels. ... Captain Arthur Hastings is a fictional character, the partner and best friend of Agatha Christies Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. ... The fictional character Chief Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard appears in many of Agatha Christies novels and stories about Hercule Poirot. ...


Poirot must go up against a team of four supervillains: a Chinese political mastermind, an American tycoon, a French nuclear scientist and a British assassin and master of disguise. The undercover plans of those four mysterious, untouchable individuals greatly threaten the world's safety. Doctor Doom, one of the most archetypical supervillains. ... A business magnate, sometimes referred to as a mogul or a tycoon, is a person who controls a large portion of a particular industry and whose wealth derives primarily from said control. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ... // What is science? There are various understandings of the word science. According to empiricism, scientific theories are objective, empirically testable, and predictive — they predict empirical results that can be checked and possibly contradicted. ... Deception is providing intentionally misleading information to others. ...

The narrative of the book therefore is different than most Christie novels in that it is a series of short cases involving the Big Four rather than the investigation of a single crime. Most of the chapters began as short stories, which explains why this is so.


The book also features Achille Poirot, Hercule's twin brother (later revealed to be Hercule Poirot himself in "disguise," though this is debated by readers) and Countess Vera Rossakov, an agent of the Big Four that Poirot has met back when she was a jewel thief. It is implied that the Countess is Poirot's love interest, or at least something as close to that as makes no difference.


The book's colourful plot - involving fiendish Fu Manchu-esque villains, global conspiracies, undetectable poison, secret underground bases, masters of disguise, and so on - combines many of the fanciful characters and situations that Poirot's sidekick Captain Hastings would often think likely in other Poirot novels, only for the detective to reveal a much more prosaic solution. In this sense it is an atypical entry in the series, and can even be seen as parody. This article is about the fictional literature character. ... As a legal term, a conspiracy is an agreement of two or more people to commit a crime, or to accomplish a legal end through illegal actions. ... The skull and crossbones symbol traditionally used to label a poisonous substance. ... Don Quixote and Sancho Panza unsuccessfully confront windmills. ... In contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. ...



Agatha Christie
Detectives: Hercule Poirot | Miss Marple | Tommy and Tuppence | Ariadne Oliver | Arthur Hastings | Chief Inspector Japp
Novels: The Mysterious Affair at Styles | The Secret Adversary | Murder on the Links | The Man in the Brown Suit | The Secret of Chimneys | The Murder of Roger Ackroyd | The Big Four | The Mystery of the Blue Train | The Seven Dials Mystery | The Murder at the Vicarage | The Sittaford Mystery | Peril at End House | Lord Edgware Dies | Murder on the Orient Express | Three Act Tragedy | Why Didn't They Ask Evans? | Death in the Clouds | The A.B.C. Murders | Murder in Mesopotamia | Cards on the Table | Death on the Nile | Dumb Witness | Appointment with Death | And Then There Were None | Murder is Easy | Hercule Poirot's Christmas | Sad Cypress | Evil Under the Sun | N or M? | One, Two, Buckle My Shoe | The Body in the Library | Five Little Pigs | The Moving Finger | Towards Zero | Sparkling Cyanide | Death Comes as the End | The Hollow | Taken at the Flood | Crooked House | A Murder is Announced | They Came to Baghdad | Mrs McGinty's Dead | They Do It with Mirrors | A Pocket Full of Rye | After the Funeral | Hickory Dickory Dock | Destination Unknown | Dead Man's Folly | 4.50 From Paddington | Ordeal by Innocence | Cat Among the Pigeons | The Pale Horse | The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side | The Clocks | A Caribbean Mystery | At Bertram's Hotel | Third Girl | Endless Night | By The Pricking of My Thumbs | Hallowe'en Party | Passenger to Frankfurt | Nemesis | Elephants Can Remember | Postern of Fate | Curtain | Sleeping Murder
as Mary Westmacott: Giant's Bread | Unfinished Portrait | Absent in the Spring | The Rose and the Yew Tree | A Daughter's a Daughter | The Burden
Short story collections: Poirot Investigates | Partners in Crime | The Mysterious Mr. Quin | The Hound of Death | The Thirteen Problems | Parker Pyne Investigates | The Listerdale Mystery | Murder in the Mews | The Regatta Mystery | The Labours of Hercules | Poirot's Early Cases
Plays: Akhnaton | The Mousetrap | Witness for the Prosecution | Verdict | Rule of Three | Fiddlers Three

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