Crime Comparison practice essay 4
‘Plotting and intrigue are central ingredients of crime literature.’ Explore the significance of plotting
and intrigue as they are presented in two crime texts you have studied.
The unreliability of the narrators in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, My Last Duchess and The
Laboratory are naturally intriguing, artfully presenting events in consideration of the reader’s
reaction and with bias towards their own aims. In the three texts, language can be ambiguous in
order to periphrastically talk around the truth and divert the reader. In contrast, the Ballad of
Reading Gaol and Peter Grimes lack a specific focus on plotting and intrigue and instead present
events realistically in order to make more powerful social commentary.
Traditionally, in the form of the detective novel to which The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
belongs, plotting and intrigue are not particularly central ingredients given that the set format of the
clue-puzzle limits a sense of mystery and suspense. This view is supported by the methodical
ordering of chapters as they are titled by suspect name in most cases (one is called ‘Geoffrey
Raymond’ for example), to then be followed by a consideration of that particular suspect. However,
it could be argued that the nature of the twist-ending in Christie’s novel – it defied all unofficial rules
established for writers of crime fiction at the time, such as Knox’s Decalogue – means that surprise is
a more important method of creating intrigue in the mystery. Christie does not share Poirot’s
brilliance with her reader in order to strategically withhold information; on one occasion, Poirot
remarks that ‘Dr Sheppard has been a model of discretion’. There is a lack of elaboration here as to
what Poirot really means by this, which agonises the reader and ensures that. Poirot even aids in
building our trust in Dr Sheppard, taking him as his ‘Watson-like’ side-kick and remarking that he
‘must have indeed been sent from the Good God to replace (his) friend Hastings. As Poirot’s
successful partner in earlier novels written by Christie, such as The Mysterious Affair at Styles, our
expectations of the genre are what make the plotting of the twist-ending so successful. It is an
example of strategic plotting on Christie’s part that she conceals from us that Poirot is secretly
investigating Sheppard. Because of their apparent relationship, it seems impossible that Poirot
means anything else when he says to the criminal ‘Without you, I should be lost’ other than valuing
him as an asset to his investigation. In reality, with Sheppard as the chief suspect in Poirot’s eyes, he
is so vital to Poirot’s investigation due to the very fact that he is the one accountable for the murder
of Roger Ackroyd.
Intrigue could also be considered inherent to reading the novel in the sense that we share
the excitement of the village gossips in trying to decipher the clues and work out which suspect
committed the crime. Representing the nosy neighbour of the quintessential English village, Caroline
could be seen as a parody of the reader’s interest in the case; she, like the reader, ‘should arrive at
the truth by a kind of inspired guesswork’. Depicting crime as something that can be solved through
mere ‘guesswork’ not only comforts a 1920s reader, who will have lived through a gruesome world
war, but also incites the reader’s interest in the question of who killed Roger Ackroyd as we feel that
we alone can correctly decipher the mystery before Poirot. Intrigue also derives from Christie’s use
of suspense in the novel. While not normally considered an element characteristic of clue-puzzle
mysteries, suspense is clearly present in Sheppard’s unreliable narration and his attempts to divert
the reader away from his own guilt. For instance, after leaving the study in which Roger Ackroyd lies
dead, Sheppard is ‘wondering if there was anything (he) had left undone’; the narration is a
