white recurring characters. Other than the gender swap and name change, she is very similar to the original character. In popular culture Agatha Christie modelled her police detective character Inspector Japp, who appears in the stories featuring private detective Hercule Poirot, after Inspector Lestrade. Similar to Lestrade, Japp is described as "a little, sharp, dark, ferret-faced man" in Christie's 1920 novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In her autobiography, Christie stated that she wrote her early Poirot stories "in the Sherlock Holmes tradition—eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp". A search engine, the Inspector Lestrade, is used by MacIntosh, a "fast, lightweight meta searcher." "The Inspector Lestrade Award" is a rising term among message boards for a person who is "almost correct." It has shown up on zdnet and "Bad Astronomy and the Universe Today" forum. The Peterson Pipes company has a Sherlock Holmes (Return) Series of handmade pipes with silverwork. Two Lestrade pipes are in the collection. References Bibliography "Starring Sherlock Holmes" David Stuart Davies; Titan Books, 2001 Fictional British police detectives Literary characters introduced in 1887 Male characters in film Male characters in literature Male characters in television Sherlock Holmes characters Cultural depictions of Metropolitan Police officers