The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd embodies everything that I love about Agatha Christie mysteries! Especially the ending…

But let’s start at the beginning. The village of King’s Abbot is rocked by the apparent suicide of Mrs. Ferrars, a wealthy widow, and the murder of Roger Ackroyd, a widower who hoped to marry Mrs. Ferrars. The deaths occur just one day apart and pulled into the center of both cases is Dr. Sheppard, the good country doctor. He is invited to dinner at Ackroyd’s home the night after Mrs. Ferrar’s death to be told by Ackroyd that the women he loved had confessed to him that she had poisoned her late husband and that she was being blackmailed. She did not reveal the identity of her blackmailer and died of an overdose of veronal that evening.

Before Dr. Sheppard departs Ackroyd’s home, Fernly Glen, the butler hands Ackroyd a blue envelope from Mrs. Ferrars! A note from the grave and perhaps revealing the identity of her blackmailer. Ackroyd decides he wants to read the letter alone and Dr. Sheppard takes his leave, returning to the home he shares with his sister, and inquisitive spinster who doesn’t miss anything that goes on in the village and fancies herself a bit of a detective later on in the story. (Interesting side note: In Agatha’s autobiography, she credits Dr. Sheppard’s sister as being the inspiration for Miss Marple.)

Dr. Sheppard is called back to Fernly Glen just two hours later after Ackroyd is found stabbed in his study – and the blue letter is gone. The house is full of suspects with motives and opportunity. Miss Russell, the housekeeper, who had hopes of one day marrying Ackroyd herself. Major Blunt, who clearly was distracted during his visit to Fernly Glen, and who had given Ackroyd the small dagger from Tunis that eventually killed him. Geoffrey Raymond, the young secretary, who is a little too efficient, and parlormaid Ursula Bourne, who has a mysterious background, are also suspects. As are Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd and her daughter Flora, Ackroyd’s sister-in-law and niece who are financially dependent on him, and Ralph Paton, Ackroyd’s adult adopted son, who is secretly engaged to Flora. Paton was estranged from his father because of gambling debts and was staying the village at the time of his father’s murder.

Flora, dismayed that Paton soon becomes the prime suspect, implores Hercule Poirot, who has recently retired to King’s Abbott, to clear his name. Poirot agrees and Dr. Sheppard takes the place of Hastings as his partner in the investigation as well as the narrator of the story.

A discarded ring, a chair moved every so slightly and a phone call all lead Poirot to the thrilling conclusion. I literally gasped when the murderer’s true identity was revealed. Agatha at her finest.

I give The Murder of Roger Ackroyd five out of five stars.

The Secret of Chimneys

If you are fascinated by political intrigue, then you’ll enjoy The Secret of Chimneys. The story begins with a chance meeting between adventurers Anthony Cade and Jimmy McGrath in the Rhodesian bush. McGrath is on his way to search for gold in Africa, and asks his friend if he’d like to run two errands for him in London.

The first favor involves delivering the memoirs of Count Stylptitch of Herzoslovakia to his publisher for 1,000 pounds. McGrath had rescued the Count from a street assault in Paris, and upon his recent death, the Count had asked that McGrath safely see his manuscript delivered. The second request McGrath asks of Cade is to relieve a woman named Virginia Revel of a blackmail scheme. McGrath had procured the blackmail letters from a dying man who asked him to keep up the scheme, but McGrath only wanted to put the woman’s fears to rest. Cade, being the free spirit that his is, agrees to both tasks.

On his first night in London, Cade receives three unexpected visitors. The first, a baron from Herzoslovakia, pleads with Cade to sell him the Count’s memoirs for twice the payoff. The Baron is concerned the publication of the memoirs would harm the country’s plan to restore its monarchy by putting Prince Michael Obolovitch on the throne. Cade refuses.

His next visitor, a member of the Comrades of the Red Hand, demands the manuscript at gunpoint. The group does not want the monarchy restored. Cade is able to kick the revolver out of the man’s hand and he flees off into the night. Cade has to defend himself one last time after he discovers a waiter named Giuseppe rifling through his things in the middle of the night. Cade once again manages to scare away his knife-wielding invader, but not before Giuseppe makes off with the blackmail letters.

Cade manages to complete his first task – delivering the manuscript to the publishers – after a harrowing evening and embarks upon his second task – letting Virginia Revel know about the blackmail scheme. Upon meeting her, Cade is stunned when she asks him for a favor instead – disposing of the dead body in her study, which Cade is equally astonished to find is that of Giuseppe.

And we’re not even at Chimneys, a sprawling country estate, yet. Cade and Virginia Revel head there next after finding a note reading “Chimneys 11:45 Thursday” in Giuseppe’s pocket. Murder and political intrigue follow them into the country, and if you didn’t have enough to keep track of, a jewel thief who goes by the name King Victor, is thrown in for good measure.

This has been my least favorite Agatha Christie mystery so far. I had a really hard time following all of the different offshoots of the story, and I thought the premise of Herzoslovakia was a bit far-fetched. This novel seemed so different in tone and storyline structure, and I felt like she was trying to put too many cases into one novel. I will give Dame Agatha credit for throwing in an unexpected twist at the very end that left me with a bit of satisfaction.

I give The Secret of Chimneys one out of five stars. I don’t expect to be this disappointed very often in the rest of my journey.

The Man in the Brown Suit

The Man in the Brown Suit is my favorite Agatha Christie novel so far (granted I’m only a few books into her vast collection)! And what a pleasant surprise to find the chief sleuth is not Miss Marple (who has yet to be introduced) or Hercule Poirot, but Anne Beddingfeld – a beautiful, young woman whose father recently died leaving her nearly penniless, but with a bountiful sense of adventure.

Anne finds herself in the Hyde Park Corner tube station looking for excitement when it literally falls in front of her. A thin, bearded man, who reeks of mothballs, falls to his death on the tracks, and it’s a man in a brown suit, purporting to be a doctor, who examines the body and ends up swiping a note from the dead man’s pocket. The man in the brown suit drops it on his way out and Anne picks up the note, which reads “17.122 Kilmorden Castle,” and so her adventure begins.

She soon discovers that Kilmorden Castle is actually a cruise ship set to sail to Cape Town, Africa, on Jan. 17, 1922 (1/17/22). Anne spends the last of her money on booking passage. Once she overcomes seasickness, Anne is startled to see the man in the brown suit, Harry Rayburn, is a fellow passenger. He is suspected in the murder of a woman who at one time worked as an agent for the Colonel, carrying out all types of international crime, including the theft of £100,000 in DeBeers diamonds. The location of those diamonds and the identity of the Colonel become Anne’s mystery to solve as the ship docks in Cape Town and the prime suspects continue on a train journey through Africa.

The list of suspects includes socialite Suzanne Blair, who befriends Anne on the ship; Colonel Race, who is rumored to be a Secret Service agent; Sir Eustace Pedler, a wealthy and well-respected character whose home was the site of the murder of the female spy; Guy Padgett, Pedler’s secretary, who appears to be harboring a guilty secret; Rev. Edward Chichester, a missionary with a dubious story; and of course, Harry Rayburn, the man in the brown suit.

I loved Anne’s spunky and fearless character as told in the first person in The Man in the Brown Suit. Her adventures, multiple marriage proposals, and attempts at her life as she gets closer to unmasking the Colonel, made for a rollicking ride that is far removed from the parlors of an English country house. You’ll be guessing until the end as to who will be revealed as the Colonel in this thrilling case.

I give The Man in the Brown Suit five out of five stars! And I do hope Anne Beddingfeld returns to a future Agatha Christie mystery, although where the novel leaves her at the end might rule that out.

Murder on the Links

“I think Murder on the Links was a moderately good example of its kind – though rather melodramatic. This time I provided a love affair for Hastings…Truth to tell, I think I was getting a little tired of him.”

-Agatha Christie, An Autobiography

Murder on the Links begins with Hastings meeting a beautiful and mysterious young woman on a train. She gives her name as “Cinderella” and slips away before Hastings can engager her further. This is not the last we see of Cinderella, although she does turn up in a most unexpected place.

Hercule Poirot returns in Agatha Christie’s third mystery novel. An urgent note from Paul Renauld explaining that he has a secret and his life is in danger takes Poirot and Hastings to the south of France. Upon their arrival just a day later, they find they are too late. Renauld is dead.

Renauld’s wife tells the story of the events leading up to the murder. She claims two thugs entered their bedroom, bound and gagged her, and led her husband in his underclothes and overcoat outside. He is found the next morning stabbed in the back and buried in a shallow grave on a golf course adjoining the Renauld property.

While Mrs. Renauld stands to benefit fully from her husband’s will, Poirot isn’t convinced of her guilt despite her strong motive. The Renauld’s son, Jack, emerges as a prime suspect after it’s discovered that he planned to marry the neighbor’s beautiful daughter Marthe despite his father’s strong objections. Jack was also unaware that his father had cut him out of his will just weeks before his murder. And then there’s Marthe’s mother, Madame Daubreuil, who is said to be a frequent visitor to Renauld’s house when his wife is absent and whose bank account has grown tremendously in recent months. Poirot also discovers what appears to be a love note from an unknown Bella Duveen in the dead man’s pocket.

Hastings reconnects with Cinderella on the golf course near the grave site and finds that she has a morbid fascination with Renauld’s murder. It takes the appearance of a second body for Poirot to recall the elusive memory that dogs him from the beginning of the case and allows him to narrowly avert a third murder.

Murder on the Links has been my favorite Christie mystery so far, albeit I have 63 more to go!, but I did tire a bit of Hastings and his emotional turmoil, although I generally enjoy his interaction with Poirot. While he usually brings level-headedness to the case, this time Hastings loses his heart to Cinderella. Curiously, a Have Your Say posting on Agatha Christie’s official website, which asks the question “Is Hastings Married?” cites Cinderella as Hastings’ wife (post contains spoilers to Murder on the Links).

I give Murder on the Links four of out five stars.

The Secret Adversary

“That, I thought, would make a good beginning to a story – a name overheard at a tea shop – an unusual name, so that whoever heard it remembered it.” -An Autobiography by Agatha Christie

The name is Jane Finn and it is thrown out casually by Miss Tuppence Cowley as her cover during the first client meeting of The Young Adventurers, Ltd., with dire results. The name, overheard by her partner Tommy Beresford during tea, proves to be at the heart of a post-World War I plot by revolutionaries to spark international unrest.

The Secret Adversary, published in 1922, features the debut of Tommy and Tuppence, childhood friends who are reunited after the war and decide to embark on a partnership dedicated to adventure to overcome their financial woes.

Their first client, Mr. Whittington, is interested in hiring Tuppence to travel to Paris and impersonate an American. When Whittington asks her name, she startles him by saying the first name that pops into her head – Jane Finn. That just happens to be the woman Whittington wants her to impersonate, but he vanishes before Tuppence has a chance to question him further. A newspaper ad, placed by the adventurous pair, asking for information about Jane Finn, introduces them to American millionaire Julius Hersheimmer, who claims to be looking for his missing cousin Jane Finn, and Mr. A. Carter, a secret service operative who explains that Jane Finn was given very important papers during the sinking of the Lusitania and promptly disappeared after landing with the survivors. His agency and the revolutionists, headed by the mysterious and elusive Mr. Brown, are both in a race to find Jane Finn and the documents. Carter hires Tommy and Tuppence to join the chase.

I have never read any of Agatha’s Tommy and Tuppence mysteries until I opened The Secret Adversary. I find it curious that Agatha departed so quickly from Hercule Poirot in her second mystery novel, but have to admit, that Tommy and Tuppence both gained my admiration quickly, and I enjoyed the true sense of adventure they brought to the story. While Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple rely more on dialogue and the analysis of clues, Tommy and Tuppence were faced with going undercover, imprisonment and death threats, gunshots, and car chases.

Without playing spoiler, I was able to narrow it down to two suspects who could possibly be Mr. Brown, but I was unsure until the final chapter of who he actually was and where Jane Finn, and the documents, were hiding.

I give The Secret Adversary four out of five stars and look forward to Tommy and Tuppence’s next adventure.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles features a cast of suspects, most of whom had reason to want Emily Inglethorp dead. Her two stepsons, John and Lawrence Cavendish, who both relied on Mrs. Inglethorp for their financial security after she inherited their father’s fortune; the enigmatical Mary Cavendish, John’s wife, who is often out in the woods with the mysterious Dr. Bauerstein, Cynthia Murdoch, Mrs. Inglethorp’s protégé, the no-nonsense and loyal secretary Evelyn Howard, and Alfred Inglethorp, the murder victim’s younger husband who the family believes to be nothing more than a gold digger.

The death occurs nearly two weeks after our narrator, Hastings, arrives at Styles Court to recuperate from his war wounds at the request of his friend John Cavendish. At first, it appears that Emily Inglethorp died of violent seizures, but it’s Dr. Bauerstein, a worldwide expert on poisons, who declares her death suspicious and the police are called in.

Much to Hastings’ surprise and delight his old friend, Monsieur Hercule Poirot, who in his time had been a celebrated Belgian detective, is staying in town as a refugee of the war at the charity of the murder victim. He is immediately engaged by Hastings to investigate the crime scene and collects a series of clues before the inspectors from Scotland Yard arrive at the inquest. After a series of twists and finger pointing, Poirot makes the first of what will become many drawing room revelations of “who done it.”

I enjoyed the story being told from Hastings’ point of view and the first incarnation of Poirot and his penchant for incredible neatness, his famed and lovingly tended moustache, and his little grey cells, which were put to the test by this seemingly impossible case of a dead body found poisoned in a room locked from the inside.

I was in the dark until the very end as not one, not two, but three seemingly guilty suspects were accused and cleared of the crime. It’s hard to believe this was Agatha’s debut mystery as she already demonstrates she’s a master of deception when it comes to clues, motives, and most importantly, suspects. The reader is left with a nagging suspicion about nearly every character presented in the story, but in the end, it all comes full circle as double meanings, incorrect assumptions and misinterpretations are unraveled to reveal the true killer.

I give The Mysterious Affair at Styles four out of five stars, but the real thrill was knowing that Hercule Poirot and Agatha Christie had only just begun.

The Mystery Begins...

“I had been dared to write a detective story; I had written a detective story; it had been accepted, and was going to appear in print. There, as far as I was concerned, the matter ended. Certainly at that moment I did not envisage writing any more books.”

-An Autobiography by Agatha Christie

It all started with a dare.

Agatha worked in a hospital and eventually was promoted to assistant in the dispensary. It was there that she conceived the idea of writing a detective story – something she had been dared by her older sister Madge to do a year or two earlier. Since she was surrounded by poisons, what better method for murder than a poisoning case? And the plot?

“The whole point of a good detective story was that it must be somebody obvious but at the same time, for some reason, you would then find that it was not obvious, that he could not possibly have done it” (The New Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie).

And so became the premise of Agatha Christie’s first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and the birth of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

The book was written in 1915, but took five years to reach publication. Although Agatha made meager royalties because of the contract she had signed as a “raw and innocent author,” luckily for us, she was encouraged enough to continue penning mysteries.