The Big Four (novel)
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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.
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.
The narrative of the book therefore is different from 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.
