::READERS REVIEWS::

very good

Not Free SF Reader - Your old fashioned pommie murder, add one Belgie.


An English gent type gets bumped off - and the possibilities for who did the bumping are reasonably extensive, as Poirot discovers thanks to the local grapevine.

That being said, I found this particular mystery rather dull, with plenty of other Christie books being of more interest.

Blindsided - Agatha Christie is known for the unusual twists she threw into her mysteries to make solving them especially difficult and gratifying. I have read many of Christie's mysteries and have been able to solve some, but "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" left me completely in the dark. It is a thorougly mystifying and pleasant puzzle featuring her famed detective Hercule Poirot.

The novel is narrated by Dr. Sheppard, doctor of the small village of King's Abbot. Mrs. Ferrars, a wealthy widow, has just died due to an overdose of poison. Before her death, however, she sent a letter to her fiance, Roger Ackroyd, confessing that she had been blackmailed about her husband's death and wished him to make the blackmailer pay. But before Ackroyd can follow her wishes, he is stabbed to death and almost every member of his household had a motive for killing him. The list of suspects includes his adopted son, who had incured a great deal of debt that Ackroyd refused to pay and who has not been seen since the murder, and his young niece who had money problems herself due to the extravagance of her and her mother's lifestyle. Dr. Sheppard allies himself with Hercule Poirot, who is meant to be retired in anonymity, and together they take on the case. Poirot immediately employs his little "grey cells" to solve the puzzling intricacies of the mystery at hand, while Dr. Sheppard functions in the Captain Hastings role of earlier mysteries.

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" is a fast-paced delightful read. The solution is entirely fitting but completely baffling to the reader as well. There are a few places where this work shows its age, particularly the chapter dealing with a game of Mah Jong, but otherwise it stands the test of time. This novel would serve as a fine introduction to Christie's work for anyone who is not familiar with her wonderful mysteries.

"The Essence of a Detective Story..." - First of all, if anyone gives away the ending to this book before you've read it, feel free to commit a murder of your own. I'm sure that "they told me who killed Roger Ackroyd" would be a viable defense in court, THAT'S how renowned this book is as Agatha Christie's masterwork.

Doctor James Sheppard is called to his friend Roger Ackroyd's house under strange circumstances: it would seem Mr Ackroyd has some news to impart. Once there, Sheppard discovers that the village rumors concerning one Mrs Ferrars were indeed true: several years ago she poisoned her husband, and recently confided in Ackroyd (who wished to marry her) that she was being blackmailed for her crime. Now Ackroyd is determined to find the culprit responsible.

But before such a thing can occur, Sheppard is called back to the house on the basis of a strange telephone call. Once there, Sheppard and a member of the staff break down Ackroyd's study door to find him dead: stabbed to death in his chair. Suspicion falls particularly hard on Ralph Paton, Ackroyd's stepson, who has seemingly disappeared into thin air after Ackroyd's death. But as is to be expected, there are plenty more suspects to go around: the financially dependant sister-in-law and her daughter, the secretive maid, the proud housekeeper, the shifty valet, the visiting big-game hunter, the anonymous stranger seen entering the grounds on the night of the murder...

But it is young Flora Ackroyd (Roger's niece) who enlists the help of Doctor Sheppard's new neighbor: an odd little Belgian who is said to be a retired detective whose only wish is to grow vegetable marrows.

Naturally, Poirot cannot resist a good murder mystery, and is soon working alongside the police and Doctor Sheppard in order to track down the killer of Roger Ackroyd. Told in first-person narrative by Sheppard, the doctor takes the position usually held by Hastings (or for an earlier example, Sherlock's Doctor Watson) who is utterly unprepared for Poirot's methods of deduction, and caught entirely unawares - as is the reader - by the solution that he prepositions.

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" is a murder mystery that is often described as one of perfect construction, and it's hard to argue with that claim. Everyone in the Ackroyd household as a secret, and although most of them are entirely incidental to the murder itself, each one is presented and revealed in its own time, along with the usual scattering of red herrings along the way. Poirot himself is at the top of his game, stimulating the "little grey cells" out of retirement and back into what he does best. It is Poirot's methods that make him so famous; relying on psychology just as much as deduction and logic, making seemingly irrelevant remarks and requests, acting insufferably arrogant in the accumulation of knowledge, and yet always secretive and impeccably polite; this is Poirot at his infuriating best.

In many ways the plot of the book is analogous to Poirot himself: there is nothing flashy or gory or thrilling about it; in fact it is analytical and methodical; in many ways more like a mathematical equation in which all the expected pieces are in place and whittled down. Yet it is in this very act of presenting a "usual" murder mystery that Christie catches the reader off-guard. Ultimately, the real question of the book is not: "who killed Roger Ackroyd?" but "did Christie cheat?" I think not. One only need pay close attention to the surprisingly acute Caroline Sheppard (the precursor to Miss Marple) to concede that Christie is quite simply smarter than you are.

Alongside And Then There Were None, "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" is one of Agatha Christie's most important works, as both helped to define certain tropes of the detective novel. In the former's case, the concept of a group of people in an isolated area getting picked off one-by-one. In this case, it is the use of the "twist ending," in which the entire premise of the book is turned on its head, forcing an immediate re-read in order to grasp the sheer ingenuity of the tale. This is Christie - and Poirot - and the murderer! - at their most cunning.

I liked it for the "wrong" reasons - It seems almost a truism to say that Agatha Christie's characters are "one dimensional" and that her dialogue is "stilted;" BUT her endings are so tricky and so clever she's worth the effort.

My opinion is the reverse! I loved this book precisely because the characters were so real and the dialogue so convincing. The ending, though tricky and clever, prevents me from giving this book a 5 star rating: it just didn't ring true; it's simply too difficult to imagine the culprit, whom you've gotten to know, as a sadistic blackmailer and a murderer.

A wonderful story nonetheless.

Dan C

If you haven't read this book yet...get started! - I can see why she is known as one of the greatest mystery writers of all time. I thought I knew who the murderer was several time...and I was wrong and never saw it coming! Sometimes, when you never saw it coming, there are holes in the explanation and you think the author stretched it a little...not the case with this book! It all made perfect sense, but it would have been almost impossible for the reader to figure it out.

Not only is the mystery fantastic, but the characters are round and complex, the writing is superb, and the setting is easy to see in your imagination. It was one of the best books I have read in a while and look forward to reading more of her books!

Great read, very ingenious structure and ending - This is definitely one of my favorite Agatha Christie novels, on the level of Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. There's no exotic locale for this novel, but there is Christie's trademark use of red herrings. There are definitely lots of red herrings, with the usual characters who all have secrets they refuse to divulge, a murder in a closed room, and of course Hercule Poirot. The ending was definitely very shocking, even though I had guessed who the murderer was about 2/3 of the way through the book. It left me with chills down my spine and was definitely one that had me thinking about the story for days. I have to say that modern mystery writers have nothing on Christie. I use to love reading Mary Higgins Clark's books, and after reading Christie's novel I just cannot bring myself to read Clark and James Patterson's books again. Agatha Christie is definitely without peers in her ingenious plots and her crisp, yet suspenseful style of writing. Read this book--you will enjoy it.

Not the Butler this time! - If you like detective stories and mysteries, this is as good as it gets. Only Dame Christie's other great work And Then There None (also known as 12 Little Indians) is comparable for unexpected plot twists, great complex characters, and a unique approach to a worn out genre.

This Hercule Poirot mystery starts out like all the others. The Lord of the manor is murdered in his home, with several guests nearby, after a long day in which he learns something terrible about the woman he had planned to marry. The usual suspects appear, including the step-son, the widowed sister-in-law, her daughter, the butler, a drug-addled stranger with an American accent. Fortunately for us, Poirot has moved to this English village in his retirement to grow vegetables and is quickly enlisted to the cause.

The story is told from the perspective of the town doctor, who is also among the last to see the victim, and a potential suspect himself. The doctor has a gossipy sister who makes his life unbearable; Dame Christie has said she was a precursor to our other favorite detective Miss Marple.

Of course, Poirot takes control. He digs up clues including telegrams, furniture out of place, drug paraphanalia, lost engagement rings, patients in lunatic asylums, traveling salesmen, and various boots. Per the formula, we then have the big showdown scene where Poirot presents evidence but does not reveal the criminal, only telling him that the jig is up. No one is whom we expect and the one telling us what is happening is also showing some reticence with parts of the story.

At the end, Poirot shows a ruthless streak, letting the criminal know that there are alternative endings, but none involve freedom at least in this world.