The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction written by Agatha Christie, first published in June 1926 in the United Kingdom by William Collins, Sons and in the united states by Dodd, Mead and Company. This novel is the third in a series to feature Hercule Poirot as the lead detective.
In the novel, Poirot moves to a village called king’s Abbot after retiring from his career as a detective. Roger Ackroyd, also a resident of the village is an old acquaintance of Poirot, is murdered in the story. Post Rogers’s murder, his niece flora Ackroyd reaches out to Poirot and requests him to investigate the murder of her uncle. The novel unravels the same through 27 chapters.
Introduction
Book’s Name: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Author’s Name: Agatha Christie
Genre: Detective Fiction
Language: English
About the Author
Agatha Christie was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, revolving around two characters called Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Agatha has been 35 when the murder of Roger Ackroyd was first published. It is arguably her finest piece of crime writing.
She was one of the pioneers of writing in the genre of detective fiction. Simplicity is Christie’s biggest weapon. Her writing style is more or less straightforward. Unlike traditional detective stories, the novel doesn't inherit the element of surprise as regards the establishment of how the murder took place.
The story establishes that a murder has been committed in the very fifth chapter. Hence, unlike Doyle's sherlock holmes, the story is not trying to stop the crime from being committed, it is rather focusing on the ‘why’ of an action that has already taken place.
The Plot
In the story, Doctor Shepherd is present as the narrative voice who is taking the readers along the journey along with informing them about the ‘who is who’ in the village of King’s Abbot.
Shepherd is present as an assistant to Poirot, someone who works closely with the latter in the investigation of the murder. His role can be compared to that of Doctor Watson from the Holmes series. The people of the king’s abbot, as portrayed by Christie, are ‘simple’. Simple here means that they are the typical people that can be found living in just any other village. From the ‘nosy’ caroline to the ‘too nice’ flora, the characters are nothing extraordinary. However, Christie uses this sense of simplicity as a deliberate move, it is entirely intentional and indeed as deceptive as the narrative of the Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Hercule Poirot, the detective in the story, is a man with simple methods but with special abilities. He has the typical observant eye of a typical detective. However, he does not make use of force or other kinda od external stimulus to find out who the murderer is. Instead, he recognizes the basic human tendencies and cleverly uses them to uncover the truth.
For example, through the course of the story, we find out that every character involved, withholds a secret, a secret that may or may not be related to the case, and it is because Poirot attempts to find out who the murderer is, that he also becomes aware of all of the hidden facts. In that sense, he becomes a puppeteer of the other characters. There is more to the story than meets the eye, it is a culmination of every character's personal life that leads to the establishment of the identity of the murderer.
A line in the novel goes like this, “It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting”. This pretty much sums up the spirit of what the novel is attempting to do, attracting the readers to the more insignificant details, to lay them estray from trying to figure out the answer themselves!
Conclusion
Keeping in mind that we live in a world full of 100s of detective movies and suspense thrillers, it is important to realise that christie wrote this novel at a time when this was a novel idea. She is the giver of the idea of such works and hence becomes a pioneer in the field.
In my opinion, the novel deserves a solid 3.5 stars out of 5.
You can get your copy from amazon The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Written by: Vishakha Baisoya
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