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Portrait of Robert Barnard Photo: United News/Popperfoto via Getty Images (1980)

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Barnard, Robert

Robert Barnard was an English crime writer and scholar of international fame. He was born in Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex. In 1956, he went up to Oxford to read literature, possibly encouraged by his father who wrote unremarkable romances and young adult books. After graduating in 1959, Barnard taught at university in Australia 1961–1966. He married Louise Tabor there in 1963. They were making p...

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Literary figures

Hercule Poirot

Gender: Male

The Belgian private detective Hercule Poirot worked for the Belgian police until Agatha Christie transferred him to England. Poirot is characterised by his vanity, his strong French accent, his egg-shaped head and his impressive moustache, and he solves crime in a string of classic whodunits. Poirot eventually became so famous that The Times published an obituary when Christie killed him off in...

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