The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery

When appeared in 1926, it was Agatha Christie's sixth novel under her real name and the third to feature Hercule Poirot, not counting a collection of short stories about the Belgian sleuth. It also caused a storm of controversy at the Detection Club, of which she was a member, because she broke one of their prime rules of detective fiction writing. (The trouble is, I cannot tell you what rule that was without ruining the solution for you.) But even if you disregard the twist at the end, you still have a thumping good murder yarn that concentrates very closely on Poirot's methods of ignoring nothing and--how I wish many of us were like this--refusing to twist the facts to fit his theories.
This novel benefits further from the supremely comic (and believable) character of Caroline Sheppard, the narrator's sister. (This book is in the form of a journal kept like those of Dr. Watson by a participant in the events and therefore is in the first person. This gives Christie the right to keep Poirot's thoughts unknown to us until they are revealed to the center of consciousness.) The other characters, save that of Poirot, of course, are given just enough personality to make the plot work; but this is also expected in Christie's works.
If you saw the dramatization of this book on A&E, you will see how badly they bobbled the "surprise ending" and even changed Caroline's character in a totally unnecessary way. It does, however, pare away some of the really extraneous business that Christie added to make her plot more complicated.
Nevertheless, here we are dealing with an excellent READING of the entire original work on six cassettes published by Audio Partners. In "Death on the Nile" and "Murder on the Orient Express," which I have already reviewed, Audio Partners has David Suchet reading all the parts, using a different voice for each. Here we have actor Robin Bailey doing the honors and he is quite good. Of course, we might quibble that the character he is really playing, Dr. Sheppard, the writer of the journal, could not be quite so good a mimic; but as a reading, we suspend disbelief and enjoy Bailey's talent.
What more to say? A very amusing novel read excellently is all one needs to give this Audio Partners offering a five-star rating.

Agatha Christie is the world's best-known mystery author, and she is the most widely published author of all time in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.
In her lifetime she wrote 79 crime mysteries and her books have been translated into more languages than Shakespeare.
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890, and she died in 1979, after a lot of written novels and plays.
The plot takes place in a small village, called King's Abbot, and the book features one of Christie's most famous characters, the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
Even though Poirot wants to retire after a long career, he becomes involved in a strange and mysterious murder.
The victim is Roger Ackroyd, a wealthy man who knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband, and also suspected that someone had been blackmailing her.
After she commits suicide he gets a letter where she has written some fatal information. Unfortunately, before he can finish the letter, he gets stabbed to death.
This confusing murder, which takes place in a large mansion, causes everyone at the crime scene to become a suspect.
Poirot, who is assisted by the village doctor, Dr. Sheppard, have this magical way to collect all the clues he is after. You get really surprised that he finally gets all the clues together and also how he can think of and see all things you do not even have thought of.
You read this book mostly through Dr. Sheppard's eyes and he tries to understand all the clues that Poirot gets, but he does not.
Hercule Poirot unravels a lot of complicated secrets about all the suspects and you, through that, get to know the characters. You read the book, through clues and reveals, until of course he finds out who the killer is.
My personal reaction over this book is that it is very well written. All the clues and all the descriptions are very thought through.
I got really surprised and shocked over the ending of the book. Actually I never suspected the person who eventually turns out to be the murderer. The thoughts that Poirot had never entered my mind, and I think this was the thing that made this book good, the astounding end.