»The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

In this relatively early (1926, a few years after the début of Hercule Poirot and his mustaches in The Mysterious Affair at Styles) novel, Agatha Christie subverts the still-young detective genre with a tour-de-force. She relies on none of the formulaic pieces of conversation that pollute her later books; few of the archetypes, although the bluff military type, Hector Blunt, makes an appearance, as does the secretly-down-on-her-luck young woman in the character of Flora Ackroyd; and none of the infuriating plucked-from-the-air contrivances that mar the later Poirot books. Almost all the clues are apparent, the single piece being a telegram that Poirot dispatches in a way that is invisible to the reader. Re-reading this novel, Agatha Christie's formidable reputation becomes real. I place this next to the A B C Murders and the weird Cards On The Table as her foremost mysteries.