The British author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) remains the best-selling author of all time. She published 66 detective novels and 13 short-story collections. She is also the most widely translated of all the world’s authors. Her play The Mousetrap opened in London in 1952 and has been continuously performed since (apart from a 2021 interruption due to Covid).

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, first published in 1926, is often considered to be her masterpiece. In 2013, the British Crime Writers’ Association named it the best mystery of all time.

This novel is the third to feature Christie’s famous detective Hercule Poirot. Vain, charming, and brilliant, the Belgian sleuth makes his way to the English village of King’s Abbot to live a life of retirement and gardening.

Poirot’s peace is disturbed when a local gentleman, Roger Ackroyd, is found murdered in his study. Clues include a vanished letter, a scrap of cambric cloth, a goose quill, and an elaborately tooled Tunisian dagger.

We follow Poirot, aided by the village doctor, James Sheppard, as he traces his way through a tangle of suspects that include Ackroyd’s sister-in-law, niece, secretary, adopted son, and housemaids—all of whom appear to have motives for killing him.

In this irresistibly engaging work, longtime Christie fans and novices alike will find all the delights of her inimitable mysteries: a quirky and sharply drawn cast of characters with complex and ambiguous agendas, a quaint rural setting, and above all a masterful use of misdirection to keep the listener puzzled and enthralled to the end.

Today, nearly 100 years after its first publication, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd retains the power and charm of a work that combines tight plotting with an exploration of the complex and often contradictory motives that drive human nature.

Christie’s novel highlights the innate fascination of the mystery genre, embellished by her own unique genius. Every lover of mysteries—and of great writing—will find a dive into The Murder of Roger Ackroyd richly and immeasurably rewarding.