Skip to main content

Ordeal By Innocence - Agatha Christie


                          Image Courtesy : Film Affinity

Mrs Argyle was brutally murdered one night and police began to question all the inmates of Mr Argyle house. All the circumstances point to Mr Jacko Argyle, the youngest son of Argyle’s, as the potential murderer. The police filed a case against Mr Jacko who claims that he had a alibi of a person who provided a lift to him in a car. The investigative team tried searching for the person whose resemblance matches the description that Mr. Jacko provided. Since, they could not find any one with such characteristics, the court decides that he is making up the entire alibi and imprisons him for about 10 years. Jacko dies in prison due to pneumonia. 2 Years later, Arthur Calgary visits Mr Jacko’s house and informs them that he was an alibi that Jacko was searching upon. Calgary informs them that he was suffering from concussion and couldn’t recollect his lost memories until recently. The entire family was shocked on hearing this as there were convinced that it was Jacko who committed the murder and conveniently attributed this murder to his mental instability and short temper.  The police reopens the case and tries to figure of who actually murdered Mrs. Argyle?.


Agatha Christie has proved it earlier with 5 little pigs that one need not be present in the crime scene to identify the murderer. She does the same again with Ordeal By innocence.  One can also draw parallels to her other works like Crooked House (it was one of Christie’s best and very well written than this one) and Pocket full of Rye as they are all murder mysteries surrounding a dysfunctional family.  The pace of the novel picks up from the very first page and it did proceed very well till about half of the book. The pace did suffer remarkably after you complete 50% only to pick up in the final chapters. Agatha Christie does not take us through the process of solving the mystery and even the astute readers of the book will not be able to deduce the murderer and the motive behind the murder. One is left wondering on how Poirot or Marple would have solved this puzzle.

Despite its short comings, its defiantly worth a read.

 Rating : 3 /5









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

After the funeral by Agatha Christie

                         Image Courtesy : Amazon Richard Abernethie, a wealthy man, dies at home. All the relatives of Richard gather together to discuss the will during which, Richard’s sister, Cora says Richard is actually murdered. Cora is found dead the next day. Mr Entwhistle, the family solicitor, calls up Poirot and requests him to investigate both the murders. Poirot, as usual, using his little grey cells resolves the murderer. A typical Christie - Poirot murder mystery would be like, a murder is committed and there are 4 to 5 primary suspects. Each suspect has a motive to commit the murder and each of them has something to hide from the investigators. At the end, Poirot dramatically   reveals the murderer (who generally is the least suspect) by gathering all the participants in a room. After the funeral follows the exact typical, tried and tested formula of Agatha. Christie’s love for dysfu...
Post a Comment
Read more

4.50 from Paddington (Miss Marple) - Agatha Christie.

                                     Image Courtesy : Amazon Mrs. Elspeth McGillicuddy is on a visit to St. Mary Mead to meet her friend Miss Marple in a Train where she sees a man strangling a woman in the adjacent train. She informs the ticket collector who does not believe her. She reached St. Mary Mead and informed  Miss Maple about the murder. Miss Marple decides to find where the body of the dead person is. With the help of train time table and local maps, Miss Marple concludes that Rutherford hall as the possible location of where the body could be hidden. She hires Lucy Eyelesbarrow, an intelligent house keeper, to assist her in finding the body in the Rutherford hall. Mr Crackenthorpe and his family lives in Rutherford Hall. Lucy enters Rutherford Hall as a house keeper and successfully finds the dead body. Who is the dead pe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Strangers on a train - Patricia Highsmith

                                                  Image courtesy : Amazon Strangers on a Train is a psychological thriller about 2 men who accidentally meet each other in a train and how their lives change after that meeting. Guy Haines, an architect, is on a train to meet his unfaithful wife, Miriam, to discuss about his impending divorce with her so that he can marry Anne. He meets Bruno in the train who is completely drunk. Bruno suggests that he would kill Guy’s wife and Guy should kill his father in turn. Guy laughed off his suggestion and proceeds with his life. However, Bruno takes this seriously and kills Guy’s wife and he forces Bruno to honor his commitments of killing his father. Did Guy kill Bruno’s father and what happens after forms the crux of the story. The narrative is dark and the writing ensures that the readers are transpor...
Post a Comment
Read more