The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie (Book)

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie. Another day, another terrific (read iconic), another gift by another amazing friend :) and what amazing 3 days I had while I raced to the most unexpected ending at a break neck pace. After reading an Anthony Horowitz (The Word is Murder) which was a sort of dedication from him to his favorite masters of mysteries - Doyle and Christie. I had to pick up one of them at the earliest and since this came a few weeks back from a lovely Secret Santa :) I had to oblige. Although Anthony almost gave me the ending of this one in his story still I tried my level best to keep doubting half a dozen people to be the actual murder but the way she ended this one, it indeed put a huge smile on my face (of failure yet again) because I couldn't catch the culprit up-till the very last page. Time and again I am sure I have read almost all her works, some even multiple times but I was surprised that still at this day and age I wasn't able to guess the killer. I really need to think hard if I ever was able to predict the right person, were you any successful in any of her books? Do let me know if you were. A typical Agatha Christie story, simple, sweet and straight forward happening in a very small village where life is so much slower and more entertaining. A woman commits suicide (or was it really?) who in the first place was being doubted to have killed her own husband. Within days of her death, a man is killed again in very mysterious circumstances who happens to be in love with the women who died earlier and may would have married her too. The inquiry of the murder goes to a local Doctor who is a family friend of the man in question and he has an extra-ordinary talent as a detective to help the village police. As if all that is already not fantastic, the cherry on cake is that some guy called Hercule Poirot is found spending his retired life in the village while all that was happening and (I am breathless) he is the jolly good new neighbor of our detective Doctor :). Can it get any better for the reader. Just like any other Agatha Christie book, there actually are a handful of characters that I fell in love with at the drop of a hat or shall I say at the drop of the first dead person :). Especially Doctor's sister who herself is a super awesome detective of her own kinds with her own amazing network through which she gathers her information and at times a few steps ahead of her brother. As the story progresses and Poirot takes Doctor as his right hand man as he too misses Hastings (his actually right hand man who again was a Doctor), the cat and mouse chase game begins. With half a dozen people in the circle of doubt who have so much to gain with the murder, a few strangers in town and the background stories as why someone would kill the man, it just keeps getting better by the chapter till the finale. I really tried very hard to guess the killer and up-to the half way mark I was actually taking notes on the back of my head, still I failed big time. Have you read "Murder of Roger Ackroyd"? were you able to guess the murderer? I've got to check if they made a movie on this, I wish and pray Alfred Hitchcock made one on this :).