Harvard Book Club - Zoom Meeting
Discuss Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Wednesday, July 9th
7:30 pm to 9:00 CDT by Zoom
Wednesday, July 9th 2025
Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Harvard Book Club has been conspicuously light on detective stories, perhaps it would be interesting to read this lengthy discussion of detective stories, are they a worthy literary genre.
There is a profusion of possibilities as to who murdered Roger Ackroyd: is it the parlor maid, the retired major, Ralph, or a mysterious stranger seen lurking about the grounds? This (partial) list suggests some of the incidental interest of Christie’s novel, which conveys social and class structures in rural 1920s England. Everyone, as Poirot says, has a secret, and the novel teasingly unveils an illegitimate son, a secret marriage, blackmail, and drug addiction as possible motives for the stabbing.
Dubious alibis abound: the actual time of the murder has been ingeniously concealed, by Roger’s voice being heard from beyond the grave, recorded on a dictaphone, the disappearance of which provides Poirot with a vital clue. For the reader, deducing the true criminal is almost impossible, and the revelation of the murderer’s identity is a shocking plot twist; this is one of the few detective novels that compels a second reading, to see how the murderer’s tracks are so masterfully obscured.
Noteworthy, the Classic Fiction Book Club has expanded to include non-classics and non-fiction and is now called the Harvard Book Club.
E-mail admin@harvardmn.org or phone 612-554-1378 to register. Zoom info will be given when you register.
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