Love this, I love this book , it's great, because is one of those real Hercule Poirot books, where everything's there, and even if you think you've been tricked you're really not, because everything Poirot sees we see it too, and we all could arrive at the solution, we just don't.
Now don't say : I knew it, because it's easier when you've already heard of it, or read it long ago, or seen a representation of it, or whatever, maybe even seeing a similar plot in one of the million crime stories our screens are filled with these days. Consider what this is, the fact that it came out in 1926, that is written wonderfully, that every clue is there but so well hidden you don't notice, the fact that Poirot gives even a blackmailer and a murderer a choice, so to save embarassment and pride to the family, and doing so not only excuses suicide but encourages it (in this very peculiar, extreme circumstance, of course, not always!).
I love than among all the things, Poirot finds the time and the heart to help two people in love. I love the characters of this book, the doctor's sister, all gossip and inventive deductions :-p Miss Flora, so loyal and determined. The others too, I like, everything is good about this book.
It's really great, I've never found a detective-story-book so well written and so good as Agatha Christie's books, this one being among the best.
She doesn't just say that the detective realised something by looking at one thing or hearing another. She lets you see everything that he sees as the story goes on, and then tells you what he made of all the little things that you may or may not have even noticed, but that were there.
SPOILERS
just the usual warning, before revealing the finale.
Come on, be honest, how many of you screamed 'I knew it'? No, better saying how many of you can say they knew it before Poirot invited everyone at his house to reveal the truth??? At the invitation I got it, but honestly before that I didn't have a clue! Thing is, it was sometimes hard to remember that he was not Hastings and he was not Dr . Watson. What with him playing the same role, what with him being a doctor, it's easy to associate the characters, and therefore keeping us away from the truth, because Hastings or Watson would have never done such a disgraceful thing as blackmail, and a murder!! Hastings was maybe a bit dumb but he was good and honest, and Watson was a doctor: slow maybe but brave and loyal. This doctor Sheppard however is not.
Then we come near the end, I'm still with no clue, when Poirot invites the people of the house and the doctor to his house, and he says very clearly that 'all the people coming are suspects', and that's why he doesn't want Caroline Sheppard to join them. It could be easy not to notice this if I didn't know Poirot and Mrs Christie, but I do, and I know that they are precise, and I see that Poirot made no exceptions, and for the first time I thought: "Is the doctor a suspect?", and then it occured to me that being their doctor it was strange that he only had a vague suspicion about Mrs.Ferrars poisoning her husband, if one could know who better than him? How could anyone else know and blackmail her? I mean, Caroline always said she knew, but in a way it was just gossip, no proff of any kind, not enough to blackmail anyone, is it? But a doctor could have or find the proof.
Only then I got it, so shortly before he revealed it...
ITA l'assassinio di Roger Ackroyd
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