Although published in 1975 at the end of Agatha Christie's career,

was actually written during the 1940s Blitz in London. Not knowing whether she would survive the war, Christie wrote

and

as the final cases of Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple respectively, in order to prevent other writers taking over the characters after her death.

At the beginning of the narrative, Captain Arthur Hastings is on his way to Styles Court. It is now decades since his first trip there in 1916, after he had been released from the army due to an injury. There he met Hercule Poirot, the famous retired Belgian policeman, and got involved in his first murder investigation. Since then he and Poirot have been worked on many cases, and it was during one of them that Hastings met

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Citation: Lee, Amy. "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 July 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5776, accessed 25 November 2024.]