The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has been on my TBR for awhile and it did not disappoint. Although I expected who the killer was for the last third of the book everyone once and awhile I would think hmm maybe I am wrong. There is a large enough group of characters to throw suspicion around but not so many that you get confused. All of them are hiding something and it is interesting seeing it being ferreted out. Reading this I could see its influence on Knives Wide Out and think that if you enjoyed Knives Wide Out you would enjoy this book. This is my first Poirot book and I look forward to reading more.

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this novel. The Deluxe Edition looks beautiful.

I'm a huge fan of Poirot and Agatha Christie and when I saw that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was going to be released in such a gorgeous cover, I just couldn't resist. I've got to admit that this was my first time reading this book and as always, Mrs. Christie stands head and shoulder above the rest in writing mysteries.

One evening the wealthy Roger Ackroyd is discovered slumped in his armchair, a knife buried in his heart. It is the start of a murder case that spurs the inhabitants of the sleepy English village of King's Abbot to feverish speculation. The local police are perplexed, but soon a recently retired Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, joins the investigation. The truth he uncovers will shock even the most imaginative of the village gossips.

This has to be her best Poirot and a novel that you should read at least once in your lifetime. This mystery is narrated by the village doctor, Dr. Sheppard, as he stands in for Hastings. I enjoyed his observations of Poirot and his quips about the village and its occupants. I'm a huge fan of murders in small English villages and this mystery hits all the right notes. In true Christie fashion - the solution of who murdered Roger Ackroyd will truly shock you and you'll be able to tell right away why this mystery is correctly labeled as the gold standard.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is an awesome golden-age mystery book, arguably the best in the Agatha Christie canon.

I actually guessed the murderer’s identity because of reading some non-spoiler reviews so I'm not going to say anything about the plot. However, I love mysteries and have read 100s probably 1000s and this was one of the best, if not actually the best. It is significant that this is the only Christie book on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. It was the book that made her famous and generated a lot of debate at the time due to its plot. Overall, if you only read one mystery book, read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. You won't regret it. 5 stars and a favorite!

Thanks to Pushkin Vertigo and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

The only reason I’m familiar with Agatha Christie is the 1970s movie Murder on the Orient Express. I watched David Suchet’s portrayal of Poirot in the late 1990s and enjoyed them casually but didn’t dissect and read the stories. I always meant to get around to reading Christie, but you know how that goes. There always seems to be something else to read first. That’s why I was so happy to be offered The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Deluxe Edition from NetGalley and Pushkin Vertigo in exchange for an honest review. This would give me a chance to read an actual Poirot story.

I won’t go into a blow-by-blow description of the story because it’s so well-known, even though someone like me would not see anything amiss with the storytelling. It was only by reading another mystery where Agatha was a character (review to come tomorrow on that book!) that I learned there was much controversy surrounding the book when it came out. I did not see the big deal, as Christie’s way of writing the mystery has become a trope of which I am very familiar. Really, I thought it was rather clever.

Another thing I liked is that there wasn’t too much Poirot. I know it might be an unpopular opinion, but I never warmed to his idiosyncrasies the way I did with Sherlock Holmes. Maybe it’s because I only know Poirot from the various portrayals on screen, from the marvelous David Suchet to the horrible Albert Finney (who reminded me of Batman’s Penguin) to the awesome, yet different portrayal Peter Ustinov.

The deluxe edition that is coming out is really something to behold. If you’re a Christie fan, you’ll want to add it to your collection. Of course, this is based upon what I saw with the eARC edition and not knowing what a regular edition looks like. The pictures of the deluxe edition show a beautiful copy that’s worthy of the word “deluxe.” It very much reminds me of some deluxe editions of other series of books I have.

Not my typical genre I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Will read more of Agatha Christie on the future.

Thank you to NetGalley, Pushkin Press and Agatha Christie for allowing me to read this advanced copy.

Oh, this is absolutely BEYOND spectacular. This is actually my first Poirot story (though I am acquainted with the most recent movies--alas given the state of the second one) and I figured I may as well jump in feet first. How tremendous! I can't really say much here given that it would spoil everything, but fans of mystery novels are sure to love it, and people who adore twists will eat it up.

Given that it is a reprint (obviously), something should be said for the cover, which is inviting and draws the reader in with the composition and colour. All in all, the novel is highly recommended.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, the beauty of the Deluxe Edition did not translate to the Kindle version. However, if you can make it past that...

I love Agatha Christie. (Except for Endless Night. That book can disappear forever.) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has been on my TBR for years, and I'm glad that I finally took the time to read it. Overall, it reminds you of why Agatha Christie is one of the most popular and celebrated authors of all time. However, I do prefer other Poirot novels.

A beautiful new edition of the classic! This is one of my favorite Agatha Christie's because of the twists. I might have to buy this one for the beautiful cover as well.

I like Agatha Christie and appreciate the creativity of her work and her mark on the genre. I was bored with this story though. Being a special edition, it didn’t translate to the kindle edition. The formatting was horrible and there were no chapters to jump to.

I’m glad I read it to understand its literary impact, but definitely not a new favorite.

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5 stars

I really struggled between 2 and 3 stars, so I settled for 2.5 stars instead.

This is my first Agatha Christie book, so expectations were high. I can definitely see why people thought this book was so amazing and controversial when it was first published. But as someone who is somewhat familiar with mystery tropes, I did see the plot twist a mile away. Which isn’t bad, necessarily because again, this plot twist had never been used before when the book was released. But nothing about about the plot stood out to me. I fell asleep twice reading this, unfortunately.

I also got a weird version of the book where almost every other sentence was on its own line, and random numbers/letters kept popping up out of nowhere. And the punctuation was a little messed up. So all this affected my reading.

But the deluxe version of the cover is so beautiful, so bonus points for that.

Overall, maybe I’ll just stick to watching the movie adaptations. Maybe I’ll pick up another Agatha Christie book before deciding this author isn’t for me?

Would I recommend this book? I think there are books I would rather recommend.

I have enjoyed reading and rereading Agatha Christie books over at least 70 years. This book, the 4th Hercule Poirot is one of the best. In spite of his narcissicism, Poirot is very clever. In this book, a wealtlhy man is found murdered by the local doctor. Poirot has recently retired and moved in next door to the doctor, and they set out to solve the crime together. The primary suspect is the murdered man's step-son who needs money badly. However, the man's sister-in-law and his niece are also fairly destitute. Other possible suspects include the man's secretary, butler, housekeeper, and maid.

It's not until the last chapter that the reader finds out the guilty party. Great suspense and very clever plot!

It deserves all its accolades…

I feel a bit brash reviewing Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. After all, it’s considered one of her masterpieces, and shows up on multiple “best mysteries” and “books to read before you die” lists. The acclaim is totally deserved, in my opinion, and I’m not quite sure what I can say about it that hasn’t already been said! Even so, I was happy to receive a review copy of a new e-book edition by Pushkin Vertigo, and so I’ll give it a try. Here we go…

On its face, the plot is pretty simple. Poirot has retired to the village of King’s Abbott, where one of his friends, the wealthy Roger Ackroyd (he of the title), lives. Poirot’s stated intention is to raise vegetable marrows, and he even goes as far as to accept the village’s anglicized version of his name, “Porrott,” in an attempt to go incognito. But of course, he eventually gets pulled back into things when Ackroyd is murdered less than a day after his lady companion, the widowed Mrs. Ferrars, dies.

Questions immediately arise. Were the rumors that Mrs. Ferrars poisoned her first husband actually true? And as a corollary - did Mrs. Ferrars take an accidental overdose of her sleeping medicine, or did she commit suicide? What is Ackroyd’s step-son doing in King’s Abbott, but not staying at Ackroyd’s mansion, Fernly Park? And are Ackroyd’s niece and step-son really in love, or just faking it for the money? In the absence of Captain Hastings, who is off in “the Argentine,” the tale is narrated by Poirot’s next-door neighbor and local doctor, James Sheppard. And it’s a classic whodunnit, with lots of suspects, hidden motives, clues, mysterious strangers, and dubious alibis – at least right up until the end, when Poirot’s little grey cells find the solution, and provide a not-at-all-classic twist that you won’t see coming.

One thing that I noticed in my (re)read of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is more humor than I had remembered. The story is a bit somber, and these are not big guffaws, but little moments of amusement, as when Sheppard mentions, speaking of Mrs. Ferrars, that “lots of women buy their clothes in Paris, and have not, on that account, necessarily poisoned their husbands.” Christie had a sharp eye for human nature, and she deployed it throughout. Another thing I noticed was that, although The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has aged amazingly well, times have changed – or at least I hope they have. Without being too spoiler-ish, I really do hope that Mrs. Ferrars’ difficulties dealing with an abusive husband would have met with a different response now, in the 2020s, than in the 1920s, when the book was written. And finally, for inquiring minds that might wonder…per Wikipedia, a “vegetable marrow” seems to be something much like an American zucchini.

Wrapping up, though, with all levity aside, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd deserves its years of accolades. And if you haven’t read it, and you like murder mysteries at all, you should. Just do it! And my thanks again to Pushkin Vertigo and Net Galley for the review copy.

I saw an Agatha Christie novel I hadn't read yet as a Read Now option and got super excited! I seemed to space out on the fact that this was published almost 100 years ago; parts were hard to read because of that, but that is just based on a difference in vocab from that time. I will readily admit this is not one of my favorite mystery tropes. It feels almost like a cop-out to go thru 300-however-many-plus pages for that ending. It was well-done but still.... don't love it. I know tons have marked this as a 5 star read and call it some of Christie's best, but I still prefer "And Then There Were None." I'm giving 4 stars but truthfully it was more like a 3.5 (maybe 3.25 ish) for me. It started out alright, got a little slow and boring in the middle and then ended up pretty 'just okay' for me. Which is a bummer.

Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for the 'read now' book to read and review. This NG is for a Deluxe Edition but the text is the same as was previously published.

Oh what a masterpiece this book is. This was obviously a reread, I've read all of the Poirot and Marple novels already but I've never reread them and this was a fantastic way to do it. Doctor Sheppard is the narrator of this story and we follow him through his mundane little adventures in the sleepy little town of King's Abbot. This has so many elements of the cosy mystery - a small village, eccentric characters, my favourite being Caroline, the Doctor's sister, who does a lot of detecting and gossiping of her own, a small circle of suspects, lots of humour (i'd forgotten how hilarious Agatha Christie is, this one had me laughing in several places her writing is so sharp. I always associate cosy with Miss Marple more but having Poirot grow his vegetable marrows while investigating a series of suspicious deaths was just the cheering up I needed and what a reveal. A million stars, this is first class.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this.

I have read Agatha Christie’s books over and over. Each time, I discover new insights. This book is no exception. It is a page turner, a cannot put down book. This author was talented and gifted at writing mysteries…the best of the best. Her work lives on…will I read it again? Of course…nothing satisfies like a Christie novel. This book was sent to me electronically by Netgalley for review. There are no words to describe the genius of Agatha Christie.

I believe this is generally considered to be one of Christie’s best plotted mysteries and I’m not sure I agree, but it’s still well-executed and clever and I enjoyed rereading it in the new deluxe edition.

I think it’s easier to deduce who the killer is earlier in the novel than with most Christie stories, but I also don’t think that ruins the enjoyment of watching the plot unfold even if you know who the killer is. It employs a certain mystery trope that as modern readers we’ve seen many, many times by now, but it’s worth keeping in mind that when this was originally written, the concept was probably pretty novel.

I enjoyed the sense of place in this one as well, and as a fan of Poirot, I’m always happy to revisit the little detective’s adventures. Do you need the new deluxe edition if you’ve already read the story? Probably not. But if you’re a Christie enthusiast like me, you’re going to want it anyway.

Pros: Although I read many modern mysteries, this is only the third Agatha Christie book I’ve read. After reading this classic, I see the foundation of today’s mysteries and thrillers and appreciate Christie’s work in the genre even more. I loved the twist in this book and did not expect it.

I also love that this is a newly published version of this book. I hope this is just the first of many because matching books that look beautiful on shelves make wonderful gifts.

Cons: None that I can think of.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the opportunity to read this book.

I could have sworn I read this book back in high school. If I did though I forgot everything even whodunnit, so I guess this qualifies as my first time. When Pushkin Press releases this book, it will be a deluxe edition and I can't wait to see it.
Hercule Poirot is living in the small village of King’s Abbot, and it isn't long before he is investigating a murder. He has moved into The Larches, next door to Doctor James Sheppard, who will fill the role vacated when Captain Hastings moved to Argentina.
You see Roger Ackroyd was murdered and it is not only a perplexing case but one where the local police have settled on one suspect, Ralph Patton. Poirot has his own ideas and with the assistance of Doctor Sheppard, he discovers whodunit and why. I won't go into more details but there is a reason why Agatha Christie's books are still so popular today. Such an engaging story and when the killer is revealed my "little grey cells" were indeed surprised.

This is my first Christie novel which as a thriller lover is an absolute shame, I am aware!

Without giving away any details, this was one of the smartest well done thrillers I have read in a while and I see how it was listed on the 1001 books you must read before you die list.

The ending is everything with this one and well worth the wait!

If you love thrillers, look no further than this one! You won’t regret it!

Oh, she was definitely one of the best. No one has written the classic mystery better. Poirot, the detective here, and Jane Marple of St. Mary Mead are enshrined in detective fiction. The ongoing popularity of this “golden age” writer is well deserved. They say that she outsells everything except for the Bible and Shakespeare.

Here, in time for the holidays, is a beautiful gift edition of on of Christie’s popular titles. It remains intriguing with its many suspects, and the detective with his “little grey cells.” Why would someone want to kill Roger? How did they do it? And, who was it? Find out here and discover or rediscover a master at work.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for this title. All opinions are my own.