Essay
A* Crime Comparison Exemplar Essay 6
Explore the significance of investigation and detection in two crime texts you have studied. Incorporating the AQA Crime Poetry Anthology and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
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Crime Comparison practice essay 6Explore the significance of investigation and detection in two crime texts you have studied
As a clue-puzzle mystery, investigation and detection are crucial elements of The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd, as Christie demonstrates through Poirot how one man’s intuition can solve even the
most challenging cases of crime. The investigation is less successful in Peter Grimes in the sense that
the criminal is detected too late – the slow reaction of the justice system gives rise to further
murders. Offenders are not even detected in Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess and are able to
continue with their lives above the reproach of an investigation.
The success of the investigation in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd can be attributed almost
entirely to Poirot. Christie presents the police’s investigation as completely ineffectual in contrast to
that of Poirot; it is implied that they fail because their motives for solving crime are based on
personal incentives, such as closing a case quickly, whereas Poirot is disinterested. Fulfilling their
traditional stereotype in crime fiction, the police in the novel become prejudiced towards working-
class suspects, as Inspector Raglan remarks of Charles Kent ‘class of fellow he was, with a pair of
boots clean dropping off him’. The inspector’s tone here is laced with contempt for Charles Kent,
which strongly represents their flawed investigation given that Kent should be seen an innocent until
proven guilty. Instead, Raglan makes an unjustified assumption about him, perhaps because of a
desire to incriminate the working-class scapegoat as an ‘easy’ option. Poirot, on the other hand, has
no connection with any of the suspects, and is not even legally obliged to hand over his findings to
the police as a private sleuth. Christie also suggests that the police do not utilise their intuition to the
same extent as Poirot, who emphasises how ‘little grey cells’ are all that is necessary for a successful
investigation. The reader is encouraged to embrace this fact as subsequently solving crime does not
seem particularly difficult, if an offender can be detected using the power of the mind alone. As a
result, the reader becomes an integral part of the clue-puzzle mystery, assessing the credibility of
suspects based on the evidence in tandem with Poirot. This type of investigation, together with the
reassuring presentation of crime as easily-solved (needed during the uncertainty of the post-First
World War period), explains the success of the clue-puzzle and why Christie’s writing period is often
regarded as the Golden Age of crime fiction. In contrast to Poirot’s and the reader’s investigation,
the police rely too much on physical evidence as opposed to their intuition. In doing so, Christie
satirises the police force, portraying Inspector Raglan as a fool in his childish excitement over some
‘fingerprints!’. Poirot’s comparison of evidence like fingerprints to a ‘blind alley’ demonstrates the
conflict between the two investigative powers – Poirot explains solving crime in terms of ‘the study
of human nature’, rather than the procedural approach of the police.
It has been argued by Thompson (2013) that Christie’s portrayal of Poirot shows that she
‘understood human nature very well’; it is true that much of the social commentary made by the
investigation conveys an intimate knowledge of the workings of the human brain. The accusatory
tone contained in Poirot’s declaration ‘each one of you has something to hide’ can be seen as one of
the most important lines of the novel, since it highlights Christie’s message that everyone has secrets
beneath their outward appearance that could compel them to murder. Poirot’s style of detection
proceeds from an understanding of this principle, trusting no one in view of the idea that everyone is
capable of committing crime despite a polite exterior. The police do not recognise this, as
demonstrated by their ignorance of many of the female characters – seeing them as too ‘weak’ to
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