Airdate: Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders

Early Sunday evenings have traditionally been the place for documentary, lifestyle and history programming but from this weekend, it moves into mystery crime.

3 part British drama Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders screens from as early as 7:40pm.

The series stars John Malkovich as Hercule Poirot & Rupert Grint as Inspector Crome.

The book was written and is set in 1935 and was published in January 1936. It has previously been adapted for screen as The Alphabet Murders with Tony Randallnas Poirot in 1965, and for an episode of ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot starring David Suchet.

It screened in the UK from Christmas.

England, 1933. Hercule Poirot (John Malkovich), older, greyer and no longer revered by the public, has been receiving mysterious letters from a stranger who calls themselves A.B.C and the author has an obsessive, ominous interest in Hercule.

Hercule alerts the police at Scotland Yard but he’s met with utter disdain as the new hothead officer, Inspector Crome (Rupert Grint), refuses to see him.

Meanwhile, Cust (Eamon Farren), a shy and poorly businessman, rents a room at Marbury Boarding House, run by the cantankerous Rose Marbury (Shirley Henderson) and her unloved daughter, Lily (Anya Charlotra). From here he intends to start his new business selling stockings.

Hercule receives another letter from A.B.C. forewarning something sinister in Andover. Hercule travels there immediately and makes a shocking discovery – the brutally murdered body of Alice Asher with an ABC Railway Guide beside her body. Despite the police’s confidence that the culprit was her alcoholic husband, Hercule believes that there is a killer at large.

7:40pm Sunday on ABC.