As I've discussed before, detective TV shows are like comfort food to me. However, as I've also discussed before (like one sentence later in the same post), I haven't read a lot of detective fiction. This was the third Agatha Christie novel I'd read and my first featuring Hercule Poirot.* It should come as no surprise that I have watched the full 70-episode run of the BBC Poirot series. Luckily for me, they all sort of muddle together so I can read the books without remembering whodunit. When I started The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I immediately remembered which episode it was (the one where Poirot decides to retire to the country!), but I didn't remember the crime at all.
To read Poirot after watching hours upon hours of the TV show was a little surreal. I could see and hear David Suchet perform every affectation written on the page. I was almost surprised to find that I didn't feel this detracted from the book at all. What did surprise me was that the book was written in the first person by one of the other characters. It had never occurred to me that the Poirot books might be first person narratives. (While reading Roger Ackroyd, I inferred that many of the books are probably narrated by Captain Hastings.) Seeing this in action, it's clever and makes perfect sense. The narrator is in the same position as the reader: neither of you ever know quite what Poirot is up to until the big reveal. Anyway, it was fun to read this. Yay!
As an aside, I HIGHLY recommend this LA Review of Books article from a few years ago on the occasion of the end of the Poirot TV series, but about Poirot more broadly.
* I read And Then There Were None in middle school, adored it, and sought out another Agatha Christie novel at random. I don't remember which I ended up with, but it was a Poirot book and 13-year-old me just couldn't get into it. I don't think I quite got what Poirot was supposed to be. I never picked up a Christie book again until last year when I found a Miss Marple book at a thrift store, but I have watched every BBC adaptation of her books I can get my hands on.
