The writing and plot are beautifully executed. Step-by-step he exposes each person’s secret until we finally arrive at the murderer.Īhh, if it was just so simple.
Poirot and his ‘little grey cells’ are not fooled by the many red herring trails available, and tracks down each in turn. His footprints are found, he is spotted not long before the murder is committed and then he disappears as though in hiding for the crime. Ralph Paton is the prime suspect, being always in a scrape and wayward with his money. Taken away from his quest to grow the perfect marrow by Flora Ackroyd, the niece who is quietly engaged to Roger’s step-son, Poirot is tasked to find the truth of the murder. In to all of this enters the retired detective, Hercule Poirot. A widowed sister-in-law and her daughter Flora, a wayward step-son Ralph Paton, a big game hunting friend Major Blunt, a private secretary and a number of his household staff all become embroiled with secrets aplenty to hide between them. The key characters cover both ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ in the Fernly Park home of Roger Ackroyd. Poisoning, romances, and scheming are all grist for the gossip mill. We are drawn in to the village gossip through the doctor’s sister, Caroline, who appears to be the central hub to whom rumours are brought and then dispatched outward in to the community. She is one of two owners of the ‘big’ houses in the village, the other being Roger Ackroyd.Ī scant twenty-four hours passes between the death of Mrs Ferrars and that of Roger Ackroyd. The story itself is narrated by Dr James Sheppard, the local GP, and opens with news of the death of a prominent local woman, Mrs Ferrars.
It is a fabulous piece of fiction featuring her now famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who in this novel has recently retired to the small village of King’s Abbot. The novel was first published in 1926, having previously been serialised in the London Evening News. That made it a no-brainer for me to re-read this classic of detective fiction. I have loved Agatha Christie’s work since I was a teenager, when I owned pretty much her entire works in secondhand hardbacks.
I will put my cards on the table right at the start.
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