This piece contains spoilers for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Where to go from there?
Christie felt like a locked door, behind which a deeper understanding of what Turton was up to awaited.
This is true, I think, but there’s much more to it as well.
If all of Christie is like Roger Ackroyd, the reverse is true for her stuff.
Roger Ackroyd is a book that exists purely to be solved.
But why does her writing work so well as a game?
But if you’ve never read a Christie before, hopefully I can convince you to try one out.
A landed gentry punch in in a small community is bumped off in a mysterious way.
Let’s get the obvious reason why this works as a game so well out of the way.
Christie is surprisingly honest.
On top of that she employs Poirot as a sort of games master.
In Roger Ackroyd Poirot is only sort of the main character.
Rather, the Watson-pop in, a local country doctor who narrates the book is probably the protagonist.
Poirot is instead a sort of object of fascination a la Holmes - how does he work?
What’s he thinking?
He keeps things going and gives readers and players certain puzzles to worry away at.
But there’s more, I think.
And then the thing that really seals it for me: Poirot isn’t just a detective.
He’s a famous detective.
I said I was going to spoil Roger Ayrkroyd, but I at least have a reason.
If you don’t want this book to be ruined, stop reading now.
It’s a sort of double challenge for Christie and the reader to pull off together.
And can she do this without cheating?
(I assume I missed a lot.)
