The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (published in
1926) is a
detective novel by
Agatha Christie. It features
Hercule Poirot as the lead detective. It is one of Christie's most well-known and most controversial novels, its innovative
twist ending having a significant impact on the genre.
* Roger Ackroyd, country gentleman, distressed about the recent death of his mistress
* Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, his widowed sister-in-law
* Flora Ackroyd, his niece and Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd's daughter
* Ralph Paton, his ne'er-do-well stepson
* Ursula Bourne, his parlourmaid, recently dismissed
* Major Hector Blunt, big game hunter and Roger Ackroyd's friend
* Geoffrey Raymond, Mr. Ackroyd's secretary
* Parker, his butler
* Elizabeth Russel, his housekeeper
* Charles Kent, her son and marginal drug addict
* Dr. Sheppard, his doctor (and the story's
narrator)
* Caroline Sheppard, Dr. Sheppard's spinster sister.
The book is set in the fictional village of King's Abbott in
England. It is narrated by Dr. James Sheppard, who becomes Poirot's assistant (a role filled by
Captain Hastings in several other Poirot novels). The story begins with the death of Mrs. Ferrars, a wealthy widow who is rumoured to have murdered her husband. Her death is initially believed to be suicide until Roger Ackroyd, a widower who had been expected to marry Mrs. Ferrars, dies. The suspects include Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, Roger's neurotic hypochondriac sister-in-law who has accummulated personal debts through extravagant spending; her daughter Flora; Major Blunt, a big
game hunter; Geoffrey Raymond, Ackroyd's personal secretary; Ralph Paton, Ackroyd's stepson and another person with heavy debts; Parker, a snooping butler; and Ursula Bourne, a parlourmaid with an uncertain history who resigned her post the afternoon of the murder.
The initial suspect is Ralph, who is engaged to Flora and stands to inherit his stepfather's fortune. Several critical pieces of evidence seem to point to Ralph. Poirot, who has just moved to the town, begins to investigate at Flora's behest.
The book ends with a then-unprecedented
plot twist: Poirot, having exonerated all of the original suspects, lays out a completely-reasoned case that the murderer is in fact Dr. Sheppard, who has not only been Poirot's assistant but the story's
narrator.
The most notable aspect of the book, which led to considerable controversy on its publication, is its alleged use of an
unreliable narrator, who in fact confesses at the end to being the murderer. In this confession, Dr. Sheppard attempts to exculpate himself from having been at all untruthful as a narrator:
I am rather pleased with myself as a writer. What could be neater, for instance, than the following: "The letters were brought in at twenty minutes to nine. It was just ten minutes to nine when I left him, the letter still unread. I hesitated with my hand on the door handle, looking back and wondering if there was anything I had left undone."
Dr. Sheppard's (and Christie's) contention was that everything he had written had been the truth; he simply had not written the
whole truth. In particular, he did not mention what happened
between twenty and ten minutes to nine, the time at which he was in fact murdering Roger Ackroyd.
At the time, there was some level of outcry as to whether or not the ending was fair to the reader, even though Christie - as always - had left clues in the rest of the novel. The controversy nearly got Christie kicked out of the
Detection Club for violating the rules on "fair play" with the reader. Only the tie-breaker vote of president
Dorothy Sayers kept Christie in the club. In 1945,
Edmund Wilson alluded to this novel in the title of his article attacking detective fiction, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?"
History has been much kinder to Christie, crediting her for an original idea. From that point on, the
detective fiction mantra that "it is the reader's duty to suspect
everyone" took on a new meaning.
Pierre Bayard's book
Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?: The Mystery Behind the Agatha Christie Mystery (2000) (ISBN 1-56584-677-X) argues that Poirot actually got the solution wrong and proposes an alternative solution.
A
Mahjong game is described in the novel, ending with the very unusual event of a player getting a complete winning hand on the initial draw. This success makes the character unduly talkative, which leads to significant plot developments.
Adapted in 1928 as a play,
Alibi, by
Michael Morton. The play's star
Charles Laughton toured with the show for several years, and a film version was made in 1931. The
David Suchet-Poirot series adapted the novel in 1999.
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First chapter at agathachristie.com
