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A review by thaurisil
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
5.0
I've wondered why, of all of Agatha Christie's mystery novels, this one tends to be the one that shows up on recommended book lists. Well, I wonder no longer. This is a masterpiece of a mystery book. Like all of Christie's novels, the characterisation is good, with each character having a distinct personality and an interesting story of his/her own, but the focus is on the mystery itself and side plots only occur where necessary. What makes this stand out is the difficulty of solving the mystery. There are plenty of misleading red herrings that nevertheless all get tied up and make sense at the end. I was kept guessing right till the end who the murderer was, and yet, although I pretty much suspected every character except Poirot himself, and although I had already been told beforehand that the ending had a twist, the twist still surprised me – the murderer is
Unlike many other whodunnits, this one is difficult to solve not because clues are hidden from us. Every detail needed to solve the mystery is laid bare for us, and where details are hidden, Christie actually makes it pretty clear that there is a hidden detail, and that is a clue in itself. The problem is that I didn't recognise Christie's intention in hiding these details, and so don't treat them as clues. The murder actually happens before our eyes, hidden between two sentences, and if you read carefully, Christie places plenty of clues around it, but I missed all of them! She certainly won that game.
This is one of the best mysteries I've read. It stands out not because of gimmicks or fancy writing. It's excellent in the best way possible, because of its pure merit as a mystery story.
Spoiler
the narrator!Unlike many other whodunnits, this one is difficult to solve not because clues are hidden from us. Every detail needed to solve the mystery is laid bare for us, and where details are hidden, Christie actually makes it pretty clear that there is a hidden detail, and that is a clue in itself. The problem is that I didn't recognise Christie's intention in hiding these details, and so don't treat them as clues. The murder actually happens before our eyes, hidden between two sentences, and if you read carefully, Christie places plenty of clues around it, but I missed all of them! She certainly won that game.
This is one of the best mysteries I've read. It stands out not because of gimmicks or fancy writing. It's excellent in the best way possible, because of its pure merit as a mystery story.