The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The butler didn't do it. The narrator did.

Agatha Christie's most audacious novel changed crime fiction forever, and then dared you to turn back to page one and watch her lie to you.

The village of King's Abbot is the kind of English town where everyone knows everyone. The gossip flows as freely as the tea. When Roger Ackroyd is found stabbed to death in his study, the list of suspects includes the doctor, the stepson, the parlormaid, the butler, and the wealthy widow next door. Hercule Poirot, retired and living quietly among the villagers, dusts off his little grey cells. He interviews. He deduces. He builds a case.

The story is narrated by Dr. James Sheppard, the local physician, who assists Poirot in the investigation. He is a reliable witness, or so the reader assumes. He records the facts as they unfold. He notes the alibis, the inconsistencies, the suspicious behavior. He is helpful, competent, and utterly unremarkable. He is also the last person anyone would suspect.

Then comes the final chapter. The trap snaps shut. The killer is revealed, and the reader realizes that everything they have just read must be reread through new eyes.

This is Christie at her most daring and subversive: a novel that breaks the cardinal rule of detective fiction, that the narrator cannot be the killer. The twist was so shocking that it provoked a furious backlash from mystery purists and became the template for a century of unreliable narrators.

• First published in 1926, the novel that made Agatha Christie famous

• The third novel featuring Hercule Poirot, following The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) and The Murder on the Links (1923)

• One of the most controversial and celebrated detective novels ever written

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears, or the perfect gift for anyone who loves a mystery that plays fair, but not too fair.

About the Author

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright, widely regarded as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her works have sold over two billion copies worldwide, outranked only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She created two of the most famous detectives in fiction: the meticulous Belgian Hercule Poirot and the sharp-eyed amateur Miss Jane Marple. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published in 1926, the same year her husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, asked for a divorce. The novel's shocking twist has been praised and debated for nearly a century. She died in 1976 in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.