THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD (1926)
By Agatha Christie
William Collins and Sons, 312 pages.
★★★★
I’ve been reading a lot of mysteries these days so I decided to cram a throwback into my reading queue. Many consider The Murder of Roger Ackroyd to be the greatest of all Agatha Christie novels. For me, it’s not up to the level of Murder on the Orient Express or The A. B. C. Murders, but it’s a good one. It was, depending on how one counts, either the third or fourth novel to spotlight the Belgian-born detective Hercule Poirot and the book that made him into the equivalent of a fictional rock star.
First, a word of caution: If you are a person who has trouble getting out of your 21st century mindset, Agatha Christie might not be your spot o’ tea, old chum. Her work was generally of the genteel drawing room variety. Her detectives seldom travel far from the manor house and village to solve crimes, nor are her tales crammed with wild chases or gunfire. Forensic science did exist, but we’re talking about discovering a hair on a topcoat, fingerprints, and matching boots to footprints, not DNA analysis. Poirot’s weapon is deductive reasoning or, as he puts it, using “zee leetle gray cells.” With a 5’4” roly-poly body and fastidious OCD habits, Poirot is the sort who is more likely to do damage to camembert than a bad guy’s jaw.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd opens with the suicide of Mrs. Ferrars who, many locals believe once poisoned her husband. This is tough toffee for Roger Ackroyd, who was affianced to the now-deceased wealthy widow. This puts a jolly big damper on Ackroyd’s dinner party attended by his sister-in-law and her daughter, Flora; big-game hunter Hector Blunt, who fancies Flora; Roger’s personal secretary, Geoffrey Raymond; and Dr. James Sheppard, who narrates the novel. There is, of course, house staff, including parlourmaid Ursula Bourne, butler John Parker, and housekeeper Elizabeth Russell. There is also the matter of Ackroyd’s stepson via Roger’s late wife’s first marriage, Ralph Paton, whom Roger has fingered as a suitable husband for Flora, much to Blunt’s lament and Ralph’s indifference. Roger also tells Dr. Sheppard that the late Mrs. Ferrars was being blackmailed by someone claiming to have proof she killed her husband. A perfectly dreadful evening gets worse when, later in the night, Roger is murdered.
Enter Hercule Poirot, already famed on the Continent, but supposedly in retirement in England. (It’s hard to know why he chose England, as Christie’s Poirot novels are filled with xenophobic dislike and distrust of the diminutive detective because, after all, he’s a foreigner.) Poirot will, of course, be lured away from his easy chair to investigate Roger’s murder. A few more dodgy characters enter into the equation, including one Charles Kent, a drug addict; Sheppard’s unmarried sister, a local snoop and gossip; and relatives of the house staff.
If this sounds like a stuffed cast, it is. Possible motives for murder proliferate as well: money woes, jealousy, family secrets, the disappearance of Ralph, and the sort of generalized reprobate behaviors we have come to expect of upper-class British twits. Poirot begins his extensive interrogations and knows immediately that nearly everyone is withholding information. All of this is vintage Agatha Christie. Suffice it to say Poirot is certain that the murderer is near but given that here are enough red herrings to feed the entire population of Holland, where to start? What to make of a found dagger, a gold ring in a pond, finger prints, property titles in play, a goose quill, footprints, and a Dictaphone? And let’s not forget two clueless police inspectors. (Neither is Japp or Hastings, who factor into later Poirot tales.)
Will Poirot solve the murder? Of course! And in grand Christie style, with all of the suspects gathered in the same room, and that’s just about everyone. Poirot’s modus operandi is to make them all sweat by detailing the reasons why each of them might have been the killer before fingering the real culprit.
All Agatha Christie novels are carefully plotted and she certainly had a flair for pulling the rug out from under dim-witted British aristocrats whose eccentricities are less amusing and more emblematic of the decline of the Empire. Much like her other detective, Miss Marple, Christie’s books are old-fashioned, though I like them because they rest on brainpower rather than James Bond-like cloak-and-dagger intrigue. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has but one dagger. That’s enough, but I could have done with fewer suspects.
Rob Weir
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