Characters in Cards on the Table

Hercule Poirot

Belgian detective who treats the case as a pure exercise in psychology, reading the suspects through their bridge play and temperament rather than physical evidence.

Also in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Murder on the Links, Poirot Investigates, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Big Four, Mystery of the Blue Train, Black Coffee, Peril at End House, Lord Edgware Dies, Murder on the Orient Express

Superintendent Battle

Stolid Scotland Yard official with a wooden, expressionless manner that conceals a shrewd, methodical mind.

Colonel Race

Reserved Secret Service man brought in for his knowledge of one suspect's overseas past.

Also in Death on the Nile

Ariadne Oliver

Eccentric, apple-loving crime novelist and Christie's self-parody, making her first appearance alongside Poirot and offering breezy theories about her own fictional methods.

Also in Mrs. McGinty's Dead, Dead Man's Folly, Third Girl, Hallowe'en Party, Elephants Can Remember, Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly

Mr Shaitana

Theatrical, vaguely menacing collector who courts danger by gathering people he believes are undetected murderers, and pays for it with his life.

Dr Roberts

Genial, hearty general practitioner, breezily confident and quick to put others at ease.

Mrs Lorrimer

Cool, intelligent and self-possessed widow, an exceptional bridge player whose precise memory of the cards proves significant.

Major Despard

Composed big-game hunter and explorer, decisive and outwardly unflappable, with a past in remote corners of the world.

Anne Meredith

Quiet, nervous young woman of modest means whose timid manner and economical habits draw scrutiny.