Agatha Christie in publication order #7: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

First published: 1926. Christie's seventh book, sixth novel, and fourth (including the short story collection Poirot Investigates) to feature the little egg-shaped-headed one. 

Title: Another does-what-it-says-on-the-tin. There's a bloke called Roger Ackroyd and he does indeed get murdered. 

Probably the first of the “big name” books - the ones most people have heard of, and the first to really mess with the established rules of the murder mystery. It also represents a setting which many people associate with Christie: no international jewel thieves or shadowy world-taker-overers here, just a murder or two in a country village - King's Abbot - where the inhabitants' "hobbies and recreations can be summed up in the one word: gossip". And it features the already-popular Poirot, though no Hastings to provide dim-witted sidekickery, the Hastings/Watson role here being taken by local GP Dr Sheppard, who narrates the story.

Plot: Poirot has retired to King’s Abbot, supposedly, in order to grow vegetable marrows (we know that's not going to last) and Hastings has got married and popped off to "the Argentine". Poirot's keeping quiet about his former profession and is generally presumed locally to have been a hairdresser named Mr Porrott. Unfortunately for his retirement plans, two deaths in rapid succession, of which the second - Ackroyd's - is most definitely murder, require him to dust off the little grey cells, leave the vegetable marrows to their own devices and annoy the local police (including the "weaselly" Inspector Raglan) by getting stuck into the investigation. 

I love Christie's character descriptions. They may lack a certain depth, but they really give you a lasting impression of the person. Ackroyd's housekeeper, Miss Russell, is

"a tall woman, handsome but forbidding in appearance. She has a stern eye, and lips that shut tightly, and I feel that if I were an under housemaid or a kitchenmaid I should run for my life whenever I heard her coming."

 

Sheppard's sister Caroline is one of those very Christie-esque spinsters who knows nearly everything about everyone without needing to leave the house, a type later to resurface more famously, and with more finely honed detection skills, as Miss Marple.

"The motto of the mongoose family, so Mr Kipling tells us, is 'Go and find out'. If Caroline ever adopts a crest, I should certainly suggest a mongoose rampant. One might omit the first part of the motto. Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home."

Caroline also gets some great lines. 

'"Never worry about what you say to a man," [said Caroline]. "They're so conceited that they never believe you mean it if it's unflattering."'

 I mean, she's not completely wrong.

Poirot himself is introduced as follows, after hurling a vegetable marrow over the wall into his neighbour's garden:

"An egg-shaped head, partially covered with suspiciously black hair, two immense moustaches, and a pair of watchful eyes. It was our mysterious neighbour, Mr Porrott."

 

Acceptable in the 20s? A passing reference to "Semitic" moneylenders and a big-game hunter's mention of natives and their tom-toms, but I think that's about it. 

Verdict 

Roger Ackroyd was once voted the best crime novel ever by the Crime Writers' Association - quite an accolade. It certainly has a claim to be one of the most influential. When you read the story with knowledge of the solution, the clues and red herrings seem obvious, but it's so beautifully done that I doubt many first-time readers would spot it, and while the major twist has certainly been done since, it was undoubtedly ground-breaking at the time and was apparently greeted with quite an outcry. Complaints of Christie not playing fair with the reader are, however, unjustified. She doesn't so much break as reinvent the rules, and there's nothing wrong with that.

A classic Christie concoction of murder, blackmail, secrets and lies, a houseful of suspects and more red herrings than you can shake a stick at. Beautifully constructed and essential reading for Christie aficionados and casual fans alike.

Next up: The Big Four. Can't say I'm overly enthused about this one, but I'm keeping an open mind.

The Golden Rule by Amanda Craig: Review

I've read two of Amanda Craig's books before - both a long time ago, and both still on my bookshelves. I liked them very much, but for some reason have never read any others till now. (There are so many books in the world.)

I didn't know anything about The Golden Rule when I started, and that's probably the best way. Many reviewers - and Amanda herself, in her afterword - have noted how the story draws on both Strangers on a Train and Beauty and the Beast. It really does have the feel of a modern fairytale… and if you have to suspend disbelief at times, that's fine in a fairytale.

At its core is the harm people can do to each other - often, though not always, men to women. Hannah at the beginning, having married young and become a mother to Maisy, is the definition of trapped. The love her husband Jake once felt for her has turned to open loathing and contempt - he verbally and physically assaults her and after leaving to be with his lover, uses money (of which he has plenty and she none) as a weapon. He's about as hateful, and as hate-full, as it's possible to imagine, and I wanted nothing more than to see him get his comeuppance. Craig writes brilliantly about the reality of poverty and the inability of those who've never experienced it to see or conceive of it. (One character - a relative of the privileged Jake - when asked what the minimum wage is, thinks it's £80,000 a year.) 

Nevertheless, as trapped as Hannah is and as little reason as she has to think well of men (her previous experience as a graduate trainee in an advertising agency is a catalogue of vile sexism, alarmingly based on the author's own experiences), it's hard to swallow that she accepts the "strangers on a train" pact to kill each other's husbands. But you just have to go with it. Hannah's travelling home to Cornwall by train to see her dying mother when she meets Jinni, and the two women share their experiences of abusive marriages. But of course, not all is as it seems, and Hannah's experiences in Cornwall - and a house called Endpoint - will turn many things around. (The writing about Cornwall, where I've never been, is marvellous.)

Reading and the love of books is another major theme, recognised here as the addiction it is for some of us. "When she found a book she liked, she sank into it as if into another world. Voices, music, pneumatic drills all became inaudible; she was the kind of child who would go off in break times not to play or talk but to read." (Relatable.) I also loved: "In her imagination she was a sister to Elizabeth Bennet, Dorothea Brooke and Jane Eyre, and this is only a small step to falling in love with the most arrogant man who happens to be around." 

There's also, however, some interesting and thought-provoking stuff about video gaming as an art form.

There are some great lines here. Jake and his friends are described as being born with silver spoons "not so much in their mouths as up their noses." Hannah's life is described thus: "Ever since Maisy had been born, Hannah had felt herself become two people: the good mother who organised everything, and the woman silently screaming and raking her nails down the walls." And the line: "'You can do this,' she said, and kissed him, because she thought he was about to die" is pure fairytale.

A sweeping, satisfying read with a powerful message.

He Started It by Samantha Downing: Review

Beth, her siblings Eddie and Portia, along with the spouses of two of them, set off on a road trip across the USA to scatter their grandfather’s ashes in the desert according to the terms of his will. There’s a big payout at the end, if they follow the rules.

This isn’t the first time they’ve made this trip, though. Twenty years earlier their grandfather took the children (the youngest, Portia, then just six) on the same journey, and safe to say, it wasn’t necessarily filled with happy memories. As the siblings retrace their steps, visiting a series of weird tourist attractions along the way (all of which really exist), it becomes apparent that this is far from a normal situation and far from a normal family. (Whatever one of those may be.)

Beth is the narrator, and she’s not necessarily unreliable, but she certainly doesn’t tell you everything. And what she does tell you is frequently slightly weird and disturbing. It’s clear that none of the siblings are especially nice people, and nor was their grandpa, though the fully bizarre nature of their family background takes time to emerge.

I liked the road trip aspect - Thelma and Louise is namechecked - and it’s a bit of a geeky thing to say but I’d actually have liked a map of their route - remember how books used to have that sort of thing? Maybe at the end, though, to avoid spoilers...

Samantha Downing excels at portraying twisted and unpleasant people in a strangely matter-of-fact way - readers of My Lovely Wife will know what I mean. It’s one of those books, though, which it’s definitely best not knowing too much about before you start, because there are a lot of surprises which are best savoured unspoiled. Loved it.