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Dead bodies, betrayal, blackmail, and the biggest reveal to rock the crime novel world of the 1920s, Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is as stone cold a classic as the titular character’s corpse is stone cold dead. In the study, go figure. This was also Christie’s fourth novel to feature the great eccentric detective: the one, the only Hercule Poiroit and his mustache of justice as he works his �little grey cells� to figure out just whodunnit. If you are to only read one Christie, this is a fine choice and offers a twist that had fans either fanning themselves in shock or hissing with rage like a pissed off cat for not “playing fair.� Whatever your reaction, this is a fun little mystery that weaponizes the readers empathy against them as the clues fall in and out of focus and you’re working your own little grey cells while crossing people off your handy-dandy Clue spreadsheet. �This is Agatha Christie’s masterpiece,� writes Louise Penny in the introduction, �if she never wrote another word, she’d still have gone down as the Queen.� High praise coming from a writer who is easily one of the biggest names in modern crime fiction but I can’t say she’s wrong. A riproaring thrill of a mystery as chock full of suspense as it is red herrings and mischievous misdirection, I had a blast with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and I hope you will too.

�The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.�

Okay, fine, NO I did not guess the killer (I was thinking the maid). Sure, I had a modicum of suspicions at one point but I thought “surely not.� Surely, I was wrong, but that’s why I’m writing a book review and not donning a dapper-ass stache and solving murders while being a portly and petty little genius like my man Poirot. He got it right, and the crime novel world was never the same.Often considered one of the greatest works of crime fiction, the public reception of Christie’s Roger Ackroyd wasn’t quite as filled with adoration at the time of publication, being �both lauded and hated,� Louise Penny tells us, �with some critics decrying the fact that she’d broken a cardinal rule and committed a literary sin.� Rest assured, I won’t spoil the ending or reveal her technique here, but it was a rather daring and groundbreaking gambit for 1926. It also leaves the reader eager for a reread, perhaps the moment you finish it because the final pages recontextualizes everything you thought you knew. �What might initially seem like an innocuous moment becomes thrilling once we know the twist,� Penny says, which, in a time before we could get sucked into sitcom reruns or play our favorite film on repeat, having a book that encouraged a reread that would offer quite a fresh experience from the same pages was quite a gift of entertainment and buyers bargain.

�Everything is simple, if you arrange the facts methodically��

It’s also a ploy that mystery authors would try to reinvent over and over again and in the aftermath of the surprise I couldn’t help but think on Benjamin Stevenson’s books making playful use of to subvert them. Critics of Roger Ackroyd cried foul that Christie broke two of the rules of “fair play� and in 1945 Edmund Wilson published an essay against crime fiction at large titling it and stating �[Christie’s] writing is of a mawkishness and banality which seem to me literally impossible to read.� Did we read the same book, Wilson, because I found this a breeze to read and sailed through it in two sittings (we did, he’s just a grumpyass goose). I suppose an enjoyment of the novel may hinge on ideas of “fairness,� but as far as rules go, and Knox’s in particular, crime author P.D. James gives nary a shit. In her book Talking About Detective Fiction James writes �rules and restrictions do not produce original, or good, literature, and the rules were not strictly adhered to.� Honestly, rules or not, just give me a good book. Christie said sure, here you go while tromping merrily over the rules. Good for her.

�Fortunately words, ingeniously used, will serve to mask the ugliness of naked facts.�

Christie gives us a wonderful cast of characters to decide who might be down for some murder, though perhaps my favorite is Caroline Sheppard, the sister of Doctor Sheppard of whom he marvels for her ability to know all the gossip ahead of everyone else without ever leaving home. I do love a good gossip. Christie throws misdirection everywhere at us until you might start to think everyone from the maid to Charles Kent’s goose quill heroin snorter is the killer. It makes for a fun puzzle and has some rather clever use of 1920s technology that all wraps up in the shocking end. And perhaps there are more bodies to come�

�Every new development that arises is like a shake you give to a kaleidoscope - the thing changes entirely in aspect.�

Get down with some good old fashion murder mystery-ing with The Death of Roger Ackroyd where you not only get to decide who you think the killer is but also if you think the ending is fairplay or some “mawkishness� as Edmund Wilson did. It is a fun ride that does have some rather unfortunate rampant misogyny (looking at you, Dr. Sheppard) and aspects that haven’t aged the best in 100 years, but its also a marvel that 100 years later this novel is still talked about and beloved. A delightful story of death, deception, and the detective who pieced it all together.

4/5