The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie * * * *

I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie for the 2026 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. June’s theme was “Best to Read in One Sitting”, and this was the official pick for the month.

Interestingly, I already knew who the murderer was before I started reading. Not because I remembered every detail, but because this book’s ending is so famous that it has become part of detective fiction history. So instead of trying to solve the mystery, I spent most of the book looking for clues and trying to see how Christie constructed the puzzle.

And honestly, there are not that many obvious clues.

Reading it felt a little like watching an episode of Columbo when you already know the culprit. You stop focusing on the question of who did it and start paying attention to all the little details, contradictions, and moments that feel slightly off. What surprised me was that while I remembered who the killer was, I did not really remember how everything worked. That part was still fun to uncover.

The story begins with the murder of wealthy businessman Roger Ackroyd. Because he is rich, connected, and involved in several complicated relationships, there is no shortage of suspects. Everyone seems to be hiding something. One thing I really liked is that the story is not told from Poirot’s perspective. Instead, our narrator is Dr Sheppard, the local doctor and Poirot’s neighbour. This gives us an outsider’s view of Poirot throughout the investigation.

Some of the funniest moments in the book come from this. At first, Dr Sheppard mistakes Poirot for a hairdresser because of his appearance and mannerisms. Poirot is retired when the story begins and is spending his time cultivating vegetable marrows in his garden. What is funny is that this is still a relatively early Poirot novel, yet Christie already had the idea of Poirot dreaming about retirement and tending vegetables. It is one of those small character details that would become associated with him for years.

The mystery itself is cleverly constructed, but I do think one reason it is so difficult to solve is that Christie deliberately withholds certain pieces of information until very late in the story. You are given fragments rather than the complete picture. Looking back afterwards, the solution makes sense, but while reading, there are moments where it feels like you are trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle with several important pieces still missing.

The village setting also works very well. King’s Abbot feels like one of those classic English villages where everyone knows everyone else’s business, or at least thinks they do. Gossip spreads quickly, secrets pile up, and almost every character has something they would rather keep hidden. That atmosphere becomes just as important as the murder itself.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and it was actually one of the longer Poirot books I have listened to so far, coming in at over seven hours. Most of the Poirot audiobooks I have read have been a bit shorter, so this one felt more substantial without ever becoming slow.

Overall, I gave this book four stars. If you somehow manage to go into it without knowing the ending, I think the final reveal would be genuinely shocking. Even knowing the solution in advance, I still enjoyed seeing how Christie built the mystery and why this novel became such a landmark in crime fiction. There is a reason people still talk about it a hundred years after publication. Some twists become famous because they are surprising. This one became famous because it changed what readers thought a detective novel could do.