A review by beccajbooks
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

5.0

I was eager to read this one because I had heard it to be the best murderer twist of all her books, but having that in mind from the beginning.... I guessed the murderer :) loved it though.

So after watching an Agatha Christie documentary recently, I picked this one up on the promise that it had the biggest baddie twist of all time. Unfortunately, although I imagine that is correct, I did guess the baddie, because I was looking for this magical twist and analysing everything so much more than usual! This didn't dampen my enjoyment of the book though and I would consider it one of my favourite AC books.

Roger Ackroyd gets murdered. He's locked in his study and all the guests at his country home are accounted for with airtight alibis. Who could have killed him and why? That is what Hercule Poirot must find out. He has retired to a small village so that he can grow some marrows - in peace! He doesn't announce his arrival and hopes no one recognises him for the greatest detective in the world. When his neighbour, Dr Sheppard, calls upon him to solve the case he reluctantly takes the case.

Usually we'd have Hastings narrating and being our eyes and ears, but as Poirot has retired, Hastings isn't around. We therefore have this story told from the perspective of Dr Sheppard. It is in the form of his note taking and as some sort of memorandum that Poirot has asked him to keep.

One by one Poirot goes through and eliminates the suspects from the list and we are eventually left with our murderer. Such a fabulously devilish concept and I would agree with the claim that the reveal of the murderer was in fact one of the best I've read - I just didn't get the surprise factor from it as I guessed it early on.

I would recommend this one to any AC fans and any new to the author readers - a great one to begin with.

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