From Amazon.com: A beautifully produced edition of the world’s greatest crime writer’s best and most influential mystery, which changed the game with an unprecedented plot twist

With its famously shocking ending, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of Agatha Christie’s greatest mysteries, and the book that changed her career.
 
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.”

The only reason I’m familiar with Agatha Christie is the 1970s movie Murder on the Orient Express (Free on Amazon Prime). I watched David Suchet’s portrayal of Poirot in the late 1990s and enjoyed them casually (Amazon.com) 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 (Amazon) 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.

For more reviews, visit www.bargain-sleuth.com

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