The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

 

320 Pages

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• The Blurb...

Mrs Farrars is found dead of an apparent overdose one year after the death of her husband. The villagers of King's Abbot are suspicious. The rumour is that she poisoned her husband and was in love with Roger Ackroyd. When he is found murdered the following day, there is little to go on.

Luckily one of the newest residents who has retired to this normally quiet village is none other than Monsieur Hercule Poirot.

• Our Review..

I decided to read this after hearing in a podcast that TMORA  is one of Christie's classic mysteries in that it has a conclusion that comes out the blue and knocks you sideways similar to her other belters "Murder On The Orient Express" and "And Then There Were None." If you have read them or seen the film/tv adaptions then you will know what I men. No spoilers. I throughly enjoyed reading both those novels and yes I failed to spot the culprit(s) 

Now I'm one of them. Yes I'm the guy who spots the wrong un well before the end. Sadly, I actually pride myself on it. Very rarely do I fail to pick out the killer hidden in plain sight. So I then I'm up for the challenge. Agatha isn't going to do me three times in a row.

The book opens with the news that Poirot has retired to grow marrows in the hamlet of King's Abbot. He is missing his former confidante and scribe Hastings. However his neighbour is the local GP Dr Sheppard. They quickly become friends. The good Dr becomes Poirot's new sidekick. Poirot is requested to enter the fray one more time. Together they investigate the murder of local bigwig Roger Ackroyd who has been literally stabbed in the back.

There are numerous potential perps and most have means, motive and opportunity. Is this Poirot's final case also his toughest?

The task of the crime writer is a hard and complex one. To plan a murder and then devise and leave all the clues visible but to then obfuscate and camouflage them to such an exponential degree that they cannot be seen even in plain sight. Then find a way to unravel the thread that connects them all in sequence. There is a reason why Christie is the greatest selling novelist of all time. She is a genius at it. More magician than writer. When the culprit is revealed and taken back through the timeline, you are left slapping your head and giving your best Homer Simpson! D'oh! Of course how did I not see it all along.

 The prose is very Christie like way, all middle class, servants, gossips and ner-do-wells. I found myself relaxing into the comfortable words and rhythm  like a favourite, comfy armchair. Even if I had actually worked out who the killer was, it would still have been a very good book. The fact that she had done me again just elevates it a little. It just came out of nowhere and yet was so logical. Well played again Agatha. It was first published 97 years ago and it's still a great sucker punch.

Really good book, with a great reveal.

• Selected Quotes...

"Ackroyd was sitting as I had left him in the armchair before the fire. His head had fallen sideways, and clearly visible, just below the collar of his coat, was a shining piece of twisted metalwork."

"Not mentally responsible. That’s the line to take, clearly. I read only the other day that they’re very happy in Broadmoor—it’s quite like a high-class club.”

“Never worry about what you say to a man. They’re so conceited that they never believe you mean it if it’s unflattering.”

“He would say so,” I remarked bitterly. “Modesty is certainly not his middle name.” “I wish you wouldn’t be so horribly American, James.

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• About the Author...

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie is the best-selling author of all time. She wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in Romance. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least 103 languages. She is the creator of two of the most enduring figures in crime literature-Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple-and author of The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theatre.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England, U.K., as the youngest of three. The Millers had two other children: Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, who was eleven years Agatha's senior, and Louis Montant Miller (1880–1929), called Monty, ten years older than Agatha.

Before marrying and starting a family in London, she had served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches. During the First World War, she worked at a hospital as a nurse; later working at a hospital pharmacy, a job that influenced her work, as many of the murders in her books are carried out with poison. During the Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, acquiring a good knowledge of poisons which feature in many of her novels.

Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, came out in 1920. During her first marriage, Agatha published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.

In late 1926, Agatha's husband, Archie, revealed that he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce. On 8 December 1926 the couple quarreled, and Archie Christie left their house, Styles, in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public, many of whom were admirers of her novels. Despite a massive manhunt, she was not found for eleven days.

In 1930, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan (Sir Max from 1968) after joining him in an archaeological dig. Their marriage was especially happy in the early years and remained so until Christie's death in 1976.

Christie frequently used familiar settings for her stories. Christie's travels with Mallowan contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author. The Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the National Trust.

Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: the short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, and the novel After the Funeral. Abney Hall became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots.

To honour her many literary works, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956 New Year Honours. The next year, she became the President of the Detection Club.

(From Goodreads.com)