Novel: "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie

[Note: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. I hope you will buy and enjoy this masterpiece of a mystery novel. If you click on this link to buy it Anything Smart will earn a commission. Thanks for your support.]

I just re-read this legendary mystery novel. A plot so diabolical that even when you know who did it you can't believe who did it.

This novel was published in 1926 just five years after Agatha Christie's first book. Even though it came early this story occurs at a time when Hercule Poirot has retired to the countryside where he lives incognito in a village where the people do not know who he is or even how to pronounce his name, where he applies himself to the growing of vegetable marrows which, for American readers, seem to be a sort of squash, and where he misses his friend Captain Hastings who has moved to South America. Fortunately for mystery lovers Poirot is soon called in to solve a murder and he finds a new partner to share the investigation with.

I read this book during the great and horrible coronavirus pandemic of 2020 and every day I felt like the world was going mad. People make outrageously false claims and when you ask them for their evidence they tell you to look it up yourself, which suggests, of course, that they never really had any evidence to begin with. People make outrageous claims and when you show them counter evidence they don't refute it they just call it “fake.” More and more people have no respect for expertise and intelligence and instead they just cheer on bragging and bombast and bullying.

[Note: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. This was the first Hercule Poirot mystery published in 1921.]

In a world going mad we need mystery novels like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and we need heroes like Hercule Poirot to remind us that when you are trying to solve a problem, when you are trying to catch a killer, the only thing that matters is “the little gray cells.” When there is a problem to solve or a killer to catch, then you forget about appearances, you forget about emotions, you forget about what you WANT. The tools you use are sharp observation of the evidence, ruthless logic, and careful testing of theories until the real truth is known and the case is closed.

When a young lady asks Poirot to investigate the murder in this novel he warns her: “... if I go into this, you must understand one thing clearly. I shall go through with it to the end. The good dog, he does not leave the scent, remember! You may wish that, after all, you had left it to the local police.”

[Note: And here is my favorite Hercule Poirot mystery, “The ABC Murders” from 1936. Let me know what you think of it!]

In a world going mad we need mystery novels, and smart detectives, and the brilliant Hercule Poirot with his egg-shaped head and his perfect moustaches who will never stop until he finds the verifiable TRUTH. In a world going mad we need good dogs, who never leave the scent....

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Copyright © 2020 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Locke: A Biography