Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie: Review

This is the first Hercule Poirot mystery I’ve ever read by Agatha Christie and oddly enough it’s about a period when he’s already retired from active duty. Our detective may have given up on a life riddled with crime and corpses but they sure don’t seem to leave him alone. Even in his solace and monotonous country life, he’s called in to solve a murder which occurred nearby. And he gladly accepts, to break the humdrum schedule of his if nothing else.

As the title suggests, the story is apparently about the Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Who happens to benefit a whole lot of people by conveniently dying at the right moment. Every character we encounter in the novel is a suspect at some point or the other and some are till the very end. Yes, it’s true you won’t be able to guess who it is. But quite honestly, the reveal did not so much excite me as I wished to. The who, has taken a rather creative approach in this story which if I relate to the stories that came after it with the same element would spoil the surprise of my readers who are yet to read this novel.

As it always is, somebody soon feels the involvement of police to be inadequate and soon calls upon the detective, monsieur Poirot- a very bold yet sensitive detective who’s ruthless about finding out the truth at any cost but still thinks about the people involved and their best interests. Poirot, unlike Sherlock, isn’t a detective who notices so many multi-folds than the average person. Poirot is the detective who looks at every aspect of things and specializes in discovering inconsistencies.

“Précisément!”, as the detective exclaims quite so often soon as he’s come up with an idea which makes all the jumbled pieces appear to be in conjunction with one another.

Agatha Christie also specializes in something. Just like her detective. And that’s making the perfect build-up from one chapter to the other in the most straightforward fashion possible without the aid of delving deeper into the layers of the story or characters. She simply unfolds the untold stories which was in the gaps left by her earlier. She is the sort of writer who does not make the narrative more expansive or dense but just stretches it out to help us all see what was hidden earlier. Not in plain sight though, that would’ve been the characteristic of Sir Conan Doyle, but Agatha simple let’s her characters branch out their story-lines which in turn help the detective and the reader reach the apparent truth. And a lot of deductions are based on testimonies in King’s Abbot, which I find interesting as King’s Abbot is described as a place full of gossip-mongers.

The story unfolds with revelation after revelation. One by one all our characters come clean to Poirot one way or the other. The only thing that lefts to find out is who killed the rich man who left a lot of money and a lot less problems for a lot of people. Interestingly, aside from all the traditional yet intriguing storytelling, the author does something which I found unique and also a great way to hide the actual culprit. That is the USP of this book, I suppose. Nobody can guess who the actual killer is. Infact, the author’s done such a good job of hiding him/her that it feels somewhat dis-satisfactory when we actually find who it is. That person is so established as a ‘certainly not killer’, that it’s hard to accept them for who they are. That is probably the only reason why I did not like the ending of this particularly enjoyable murder mystery.

You'll practically memorize this map by the time the book is done

Hence, I’d recommend everyone to give this book atleast one read. And if you’re a Christie fan already then it’s a must read. Even though you think you might know her very well but she’ll succeed in fooling you. But after everything’s said and done, my favourite Christie still remains ‘And then there were none’. And there wasn’t even a detective in it to unravel the mystery. It all just was so satisfying to observe. Anyway, Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a very different sort of novel than that. More of a straightforward and ‘conventional’ detective mystery. But it’s a pleasant read nonetheless.

"Decisions taken in anger never lead to anything good."

                                           - The revered author himself