Review: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

In the small English village of King’s Abbot, a wealthy widower, Roger Ackroyd, is found stabbed to death in his study shortly after learning a shocking secret. To solve the case, the famous detective Hercule Poirot is pulled out of retirement.

“Each one of you has something to hide. Come now, am I right?”

As suspicion circles around the tight and connected cast of characters living in the village, Poirot needs to work out from among them who could have been the killer. To do this, he leans on the village’s most informed gossip and starts to put the pieces together. Agatha Christie will present to you every clue you need to solve this with Hercule, but you’ll never guess who the murderer was. When the case is solved, you’ll likely re-read and trace your steps back and go “Oh!” - guaranteed.

Apart from the clever writing and us readers doing our best to follow the clues and piece things together, what really makes this special is Hercule Poirot. There’s no detective as endearing as Hercule Poirot, in his own odd way. He’s quite different than Sherlock Holmes, in the sense that he doesn’t obsess over a physical clue as much as he follows a certain order and method to solve crimes.

“Everything is simple, if you arrange the facts methodically.”

He’s extremely polite and respectful, for instance how he will intently listen to the village gossip seriously as a source of clues. He’s fussy about his moustache, appearance, and other details, but his vanity comes off as a genuine charm.

So you get to see this detective Hercule Poirot operate first hand trying to solve this mystery, and you get two treats in one, a fascinating puzzle to solve, and witnessing the detective work his way around solving the crime.

“Understand this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it.”

This wasn’t my first Christie, before this I had read And Then There Were None. While that book was quite the mystery as well, and I would whole-heartedly recommend it, I would say it felt like it had a cheap ending. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd though did not feel cheap, although its an ending people still talk about to this day, and perhaps one of the first novels to pull off an ending like its own.

Highly recommend this, will get you turning pages fast.