Death and Mystery: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 

By Agatha Christie 
Adult Mystery 

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. 

But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information. Unfortunately, before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death. 

Besides the rather drab title, the Queen of Mystery does it again: wows the reader with a brilliant plot and unexpected culprit. I've only read a handful of mysteries, all Christie's (she is the master, after all), but each time I'm stupefied of who the murderer turns out to be, how they accomplished it, and how the detective (Poirot, in this novel), unwinds the knot of the mystery. 

In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I enjoyed watching the banter between the main character, Dr. Sheppard, and his sister, Caroline, as the latter attempts to solve the mystery using her various gossip channels. The main character himself was rather blah, and it would have been nice to peek more into Poirot's mind about what he's thinking and why. 

This was a quick, easy read, and pairs perfectly with a cup of hot tea and a rainy evening. I scatter three stars onto good, ole Roger, and recommend this novel for 15 year olds and up. 

*What are some mysteries that you love cozying up with on a wet, wild night?

Agatha Christie's Murder Train

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 
Genre: Murder Mystery

"En route to Paris, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot has booked winter passage on the fabled Orient Express. Among the assortment of fellow passengers, one wealthy American holds a unique distinction: He has been found dead of multiple stab wounds in the night compartment of the Calais coach. By dawn, thirteen travelers, each bearing a secret, will find themselves suspect in the most ingenious crime Poirot has ever solved..."

Feel that shiver down your spine? That means you're intrigued already. Actually, it wasn't particularly scary or gruesome, except when Poirot looks at the dead body. I haven't read many mysteries, even of Christie's, except I do recall perusing And Then There Were None in middle school and enjoying it more than I thought I would.

Christie is definitely a master of mystery, and this book takes the reader on several different tracks before arriving at the brilliant conclusion of the murder. I would have liked to be more in Poirot's head to see how he worked out the mystery so well, but he does explain some of it at the end. The only bad thing about mysteries, at least Christie's, is that there is no character development. They are pretty logical books, where this+this=that, and I wished for something more substantial afterwards. There is quite a bit of dialogue, probably more than in any book I've ever read, and the reader usually doesn't get to peek into any of the character's minds, leaving them merely a spectator instead of a participant in the story.

These novels are good palate-cleansers, though, in-between longer, more character-driven books. And as I mentioned earlier, Christie is brilliant at placing both true and false clues and leaving the reader clueless to the truth until bam! the detective hits them over the head with it at the end. Thus, I give this novel a 3 out of 5 and recommend it for 16 year olds and up.

What I learned: 'Tout de meme' in French means 'all the same'.