The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Title: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Originally published: 1926
Dates read: 5/7/18-5/16/18
Back to the Classics category: Classic Crime Story
Find out more about the Back to the Classics 2018 reading challenge HERE.
Read my other book reviews from the challenge HERE.

Author: Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie is credited as the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespear. She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, as well as the world’s longest-running play – The Mousetrap. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in England, 1890. At 11 her father passed and she was then raised by her mother. By 18 she was writing short stories and she also was a talented pianist and singer. In 1912 she met Archie Christie, who was an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps - they were married 2 years later. During WWI, Archie was in France and Agatha worked as a nurse in a Red Cross Hospital in England. In 1919, Agatha and Archie moved to London and she gave birth to their daughter Rosalind. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was also published that year and she was contracted to write 5 more. This book was the introduction of Hercule Poirot.

By 1925 her mother passed and her husband fell in love with a family friend. In December 1926, Agatha left home without saying where she was going and was missing for 11 days. Her abandoned car was found a few miles away and a nationwide search ensued. It was eventually discovered that she took a train to Harrogate and checked into a hotel under a false name. Hotel staff recognized her and notified the police. When her husband met her, she didn't recognize him and didn't know who she was. She was sent to get psychiatric treatment for amnesia. It was never discovered what really happened.

Agatha and Archie remained apart and divorced in 1928. Later that year she wrote her first novel under the pseudonym, Mary Westmacott. While traveling in 1929, she met Max Mallowan, an archeologist - they were married a year later. During WWII, Max worked in Cairo and Agatha wrote and volunteered at a hospital in London. Her daughter was married and gave birth to a son in 1943. By 1945, the war was over and Max returned. Now in her mid-50s, she started to enjoy a slower paced life. In the 1940s and 1950s, she was involved in theatrical productions. She passed peacefully in 1976.
(source)

Plot summary:
Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the women he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He also knew that someone had been blackmailing her because of it. Then came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. The next evening, a letter came to him telling him who the blackmailer was. Before he could finish reading the letter, though, he was stabbed to death.

Favorite quotes:
"Everyone has something to hide."

"We work to obtain an object, and the object gained, we find that what we miss is the daily toil."

"Many crimes have been committed for the sake of less than five hundred pounds. It all depends on what sum is sufficient to break a man. A question of relativity, is it not so?

Review:
This was the first Hercule Poirot story I have read. I've seen the new Orient Express movie, but that's all the exposure to this detective that I've had. Everyone I've talked to really likes Poirot as a character, but I wasn't that impressed. All the eccentricity was just too much... and I think I'm just biased towards Sherlock.

There was actually a Sherlock and Watson reference in the novel, which made me smile. Similar to how the Sherlock stories are written by Dr. Watson, this book is written by Dr. Sheppard and you get to hear his perspective as the mystery unfolds. There is even a point where he gives the book to Poirot to read:

"Still somewhat doubtful, I rummaged in the drawers of my desk and produced an untidy pile of manuscripts which I handed over to him. With an eye on possible publication in the future, I had divided the work into chapters, and the night before I had brought it up to date with an account of Miss Russell's visit. Poirot had, therefore, twenty chapters."

And looking back, as this was written after chapter 20, that chapter break was accurate to the actual published novel I read. He clearly had some catching up to do on his writing at that point, but he finds time to write it all out in the midst of helping Poirot solve the murder.

The ending was definitely a huge a huge shock. I honestly don't know how much I should write in this review because I don't want to give anything away. I did briefly consider the actual murderer as a suspect, but I didn't want that person to be it, so I just ignored it. There was another person I really wanted to be the murderer, just because the character really annoyed me, even though there wasn't much evidence against the person. Another person that rubbed me the wrong way was Caroline. (She is not a suspect in the murder, so I feel I can actually name her.) She is a huge gossip and I think she was meant to be a source of humor for the story, but it just fell flat to me.

I know I didn't write a lot of positive things about the novel, but if I did, I would give things away. Overall, it's a decent story. If you haven't seen the movie already, I would suggest reading this! Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Agatha Christie have the last words:

"The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it."