The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Agatha Christie
England, 1926

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of Agatha Christie’s most well known and well-regarded mysteries, and on my first reading, my impression is rightly so.

It is a Poirot novel, but instead of faithful Hastings as the narrator–apparently he is happily married and living in Argentina–we are treated to the narration of Dr. James Sheppard, the doctor to the small town of King’s Abbot, where everyone knows everything and gossip is the local currency–one Dr. Sheppard’s sister specializes in. Not only are we treated to Dr. Sheppard’s narration, for who else to be called immediately to the scene after a murder than a doctor (and the police, of course), but to his sister’s sometimes insightful, sometimes wishful observations.

Not long after the murder occurs, the victim’s niece, eager to clear her fiancé of suspicion, hires M. Hercule Poirot, recently retired and living next door to the Sheppards. How fortuitous for Caroline! But more to the point, how fortuitous for the reader, for Flora Ackroyd appeals to Dr. Sheppard to help her in approaching the famous detective, and soon we have a Sheppard-Poirot pairing as they set off to investigate.

It is a mystery full of secrets and motives: money, love, blackmail, drugs. And they are doled out perfectly, allowing the reader to start to see the specifics of who is up to what, while at the same time obscuring the larger picture. Christie ensures that we aren’t able to see the forest, so many trees are in the way. And yet, once the final pages have been turned and the last revelations have been made–in typical Hercule Poirot dramatic fashion (though to be fair, I don’t believe Dr. Sheppard accused Poirot of being dramatic nearly the way Hastings so often does!)–the reader doesn’t feel cheated. Everything is there, or at least nearly so, if you can sift through to see it. Thoroughly satisfying.