Eloïse Zennefort

In the L'étrange enlèvement du petit Bruno, the French adaptation of Agatha Christie's The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly for the TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie, Eloïse Zennefort is the parallel character of Ada Waverly from the original story. Eloïse is a famous and highly successful writer of crime thrillers. Her son Bruno is threatened with kidnap in the same way as Johnnie Waverly. Eloïse Zennefort is portrayed by Valérie de Dietrich.

Like Ada Waverly, Eloïse is the one in the marriage with all the money. However there are significant departures in her backstory. Eloïse's husband Hadrien Debaer is not a squire or an impoverished member of the landed gentry. Here he is an ex-fencing instructor. They do live in a magnificent neo-Gothic chateau, but the building is not in disrepair nor does it belong to Hadrien. Eloïse purchased the chateau herself from the wealth she had amassed from her books. In this adaptation, Hadrien actually has misgivings about such an expensive project.

While Ada is highly-strung and overly concerned about her son's impending kidnap, Eloïse seems to be unconcerned. She tells Alice Avril during an interview that her husband worries enough for the both of them. She also said that she was not interested in children. Unlike Ada, she has a previous husband Roland and a son by him Gaspard. She tells Alice that with Gaspard, her interest in him lasted 5 weeks. With Bruno, her interest in children lasted 5 days. Alice concluded after the interview that Eloïse was crazy, an opinion also shared by Gaspard.

Unlike Ada in the original novel, some steps were taken by the kidnapper to set Eloïse up as a plausible suspect. The kidnap warning notes were all signed "Greg Atlas", the detective character in her crime novels. Many of the motifs surrounding of the subsequent kidnap were plot elements in her novels, such as the image of a headless bird. At one point, a wig was found in the kidnap getaway car. Marlene found a hair in the wig and this was sent to Dr Euphrasie Maillol for comparison with hair samples collected from all the key suspects. We are not told what happened precisely, but later, Dr Maillol returns with the report and commissaire Laurence proceeds to arrest Eloïse, suggesting perhaps that the hair matches hers. Laurence ascribes a plausible motive to her: she had stopped writing five years previously since she got married to Hadrien Debaer. Lately (so she told Alice) she had been planning a comeback. This "kidnapping" saga would make perfect publicity to boost sales.

There is also a sideplot involving Eloïse unique to this adaptation: her secretary Gilles Vanberten is in love with her and has actually written love letters to her. Unfortunately, Hadrien Debaer discovered this. Vanberten also saw Hadrien take the ransom money for himself. As a result, to protect his identity as the kidnapper, Hadrien had to kill Vanberten. This was done by planting a wasp inside Vanberten's car. Vanberten was allegic to wasp stings and passed out after being stung and crashed to his death. The use of the wasp was yet another plot element from one of Eloïse's books.

Marlene is a fan of the books of Eloïse Zennefort. At one stage, knowing that many of the motifs came from the books, Laurence and Marlene study them for ideas. Marlene's expertise proved invaluable in discovering which books the various motifs came from. Later Marlene also asks Eloïse (then in a jail cell!) to autograph a book for her.

A list of Eloïse Zennefort's books appearing in the show include:
 * The Mask of God
 * A Strange Coincidence
 * A Malicious Idea
 * Punishment will be Needed
 * Love is an Ordinary Illusion
 * An Uncomfortable Position

At the end of the show, Eloïse Zennefort does make a come back and writes a new book. She dedicates it to Laurence and Laurence and Marlene appear as characters. The title of this book is the same as that of the episode: The Strange Kidnapping of Little Bruno.