Another Christie Classic

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

There’s a reason Agatha Christie is the best-selling mystery author of all time. She’s that good.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the fourth Hercule Poirot novel, and features the inimitable Belgian detective at his best. He’s moved to the town of Kings Abbot to pursue the growing of vegetable marrows, but soon finds himself embroiled in the investigation of a most perplexing murder. There are suspects aplenty, so Monsieur Poirot’s famous little gray cells are put to the test in sussing out the culprit.

The characters in the book are expertly drawn, as one would expect from Dame Agatha, and each of them harbors a secret (some more shocking than others). M Poirot makes it his mission to uncover each character’s secret, and he does so (as he does in all his appearances in Christie’s stories) with an abundance of well-earned self confidence and faultless logic.

The solution to the mystery of who killed Roger Ackroyd lies in that faultless logic, and it makes the path to figuring out whodunit especially fun for readers. Many of you have no doubt read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (as I have, but I’m on a mission to reread all the Christie novels) but I urge you to read it again and pay special attention to the way in which Christie lays out the clues. It’s ingenious. Even more ingenious is the twist at the end, one of the most famous plot twists in modern literature.

The British Crime Writers’ Association has voted The Murder of Roger Ackroyd the best crime novel ever written. I wholeheartedly recommend it to every reader who appreciates a good mystery.