Colonel Race

David Niven portrays Colonel Race in the theatrical version of Death on the Nile (1978), that starred Peter Ustinov as Poirot.

Colonel Race appears in 4 novels, and in the course of these novels we learn that he is a British Secret Service agent and travels the world tracking down international criminals. He is tall, has a bronzed face, and distinguishing features. He works for the MI 5 branch of espionage.

He first appears in The Man in the Brown Suit, an excellent spy thriller about a murder tied to the Secret Service, taking place in southern Africa. (A must read among Christie books, in my opinion). Race next appears in the two Poirot novels Cards on the Table and Death on the Nile. In the first of the novels, he assists Poirot in the discovery of the murderer of Mr. Shaitana, their dinner host. In Nile, Race meets Poirot again in Egypt while on a mission to capture a dangerous criminal. The last book in which Race appears is Sparkling Cyanide, a well-written murder mystery in which he solves the murder of an old friend. In this last novel, Race clearly has aged.

Colonel Race's Quotes

"I'm teaching you to be hard and ruthless--like I am. That's the secret of strength--and the secret of success."