Poirot’s comparison is an apt one that reflects his creator’s oft-overlooked interest in archaeology. … That is what I have been seeking to do-clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth.” Toward the end of Agatha Christie’s 1937 novel Death on the Nile, detective Hercule Poirot likens his investigation to an archaeological excavation, declaring, “You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone.
