Superintendent Battle
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Superintendent Battle is a fictional character created by Agatha Christie. He appears as a detective in the following novels:
- The Secret of Chimneys (1925)
- The Seven Dials Mystery (1929 - including some of the same characters, notably Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent)
- Cards on the Table (1936, with Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver)
- Murder is Easy (1939)
- Towards Zero (1944)
Battle is notable for his stolid good sense, and he relies in part on the appearance of being a stupid or unimaginative police officer as a means to investigating his cases. Until Towards Zero the reader knows nothing of his domestic arrangements, but in this novel we learn that he has a wife and five children, the youngest of whom (Sylvia) unwittingly provides a key clue to the mystery.
It is believed that Colin 'Lamb', the hero of The Clocks, is Superintendent Battle's son, using a pseudonym to avoid unwanted attention.[citation needed]
Battle also has a secret professional life that is revealed in the denouement to The Seven Dials Mystery, but this is never referred to again. He is in many respects typical of Christie's police officers, being (like Inspector Japp), more careful and intelligent than the police officers of early detective fiction, who had served only as foils for the brilliance of the amateur sleuth.
