Don’t Care for Agatha Christie? Read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Anyway

In this brief and not entirely spoiler-free book review of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (Does anyone care, at this point, about spoilers for a very famous and widely read book published in 1926?), I share my fraught relationship with the most famous mystery writer ever. And I tell you to read one of her best for a particularly engaging look at Poirot.

Christie is not my favorite Golden Age mystery writer. I first became obsessed with mysteries, as I remember it, when I was assigned to read “The Blue Carbuncle” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” around eighth grade. I then went to the local library and checked out mystery after mystery. That’s when I discovered Dorothy Sayers and read all of her mysteries. I moved on to Agatha Christie and quickly became frustrated by Christie’s heavy-handed manipulation. The inconsistent quality of her many novels caused me to take a long hiatus from Christie, which ended when, a few years ago, I happened upon someone’s list of her best mysteries. 

The fact is, I was looking for an excuse to explore the Christie cannon beyond Murder on the Orient Express and a few ill-remembered encounters with Miss Marple and Poirot. 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd will be on almost every Christie fan’s list of favorites. As well it should be. The amusing narrator Hastings is replaced in this novel by Dr. Shepperd, physician and friend of the murder victim. Somehow in this book, Christie’s tendency towards manipulation and over-the-top plot twists delights rather than annoys.

Why? Dr. Shepperd is one of the great narrators. This isn’t Ishmael of Moby Dick, for good and for ill, but Dr. Shepperd’s perspective on Poirot is engaging enough to make the book worth the read. At one point, I found myself wishing for more mysteries narrated by Dr. Shepperd, a series, to match the series narrated by Hastings.

Getting to know Poirot through Dr. Shepperd’s eyes is not to be missed. His sister Caroline reminded me of the sisters in Barbara Pym’s Some Tame Gazelle. I’d read a book about her, though I’m not sure I’d like Dr. Shepperd to narrate it. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd features village life and a superb version of the alibi fun that is part of the genre. 

If you don’t want to worry about how many minutes it takes to walk from A to B, and A to C, and B to C and back, or if it annoys you to think about the ramifications of a table that was moved a few inches, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is not for you. 

If you object absolutely to Christie’s trademark plotting and manipulation, this is not for you.

But it is for everyone else.