The Big Four by Agatha Christie

Poirot novel may prove a test for even his most dedicated fans

The Big Four was the
seventh Poirot novel

Rereading all Agatha Christie’s detective novels in chronological order is enabling me to enjoy her best work once again and to discover novels that I have somehow managed to overlook over the years.

I was intrigued by her seventh novel,The Big Four, which was published in 1927, because, although it features Poirot and Hastings, it is a far cry from the mystery with a country house setting that readers have come to know and love.

Poirot enters the world of international espionage in this story and races from country to country, trying to track down four master criminals who are working together to achieve world domination.

The first is Abe Ryland, an American businessman, the second is Madame Olivier, a French scientist, and the third is a sinister Chinaman called Li Chang Yen.

The fourth, who Poirot does not unmask until close to the end of the book, is able to evade him because he turns out to be a master of disguise.

The Big Four was not my favourite Poirot novel, as it was more of an espionage thriller, with Poirot chosen to be the unlikely hero whose mission is to save the world.

Delving into the background of the book, I found that it originated from 12 separate short stories that had already been published. Apparently, Agatha, who was at a low point in her life, needed to come up with a new book for her publisher. With the help of her brother-in-law, she gathered up some of her old stories, reworked them, and submitted them as a new novel to her publisher. 

But she was never satisfied with The Big Four and used to refer to it herself as ‘that rotten book.’ It came after her sixth novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which had been a spectacular success and was a tough act to follow.

The Big Four was adapted for television in 2013 starring David Suchet as Poirot. It is worth persevering with, if only to be able to say in the future that you have read every one of Agatha Christie’s 66 detective novels.

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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

An award winning masterpiece by the Queen of Crime

The latest HarperCollins reprint
of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Agatha Christies’s sixth novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, was voted ‘the best crime novel ever’ by the British Crime Writers’ Association in 2013.

Published in 1926, the book remains Agatha’s best known and most controversial novel because of its ingenious final twist, which had a significant impact on the detective fiction genre and has been imitated by many other writers since.

Agatha, who died on 12 January, 1976 - 47 years ago today - has become famous for being the supreme exponent of the old-fashioned English crime novel. Her skill in constructing complex and puzzling plots and her ability to deceive readers until the very last page, or paragraph, are unequalled.

But this third Poirot novel, narrated by the local physician, Doctor Sheppard, in the absence of Captain Hastings, who has gone to start a new life in the Argentine, is considered by many readers and critics to be her masterpiece.

Wealthy businessman turned country squire Roger Ackroyd lives in a charming English country village, where dark secrets and dangerous emotions lurk beneath the apparently calm surface.

When Ackroyd is murdered, stabbed in the neck while sitting in his study after a dinner party at his home, there are, as usual, plenty of suspects.  

Poirot, who has just come to live in the village, after retiring to grow marrows, lives next door to Dr Sheppard. He is asked by a member of Ackroyd’s family to investigate the murder because they are worried the police will get it wrong. Suspicion has fallen on Ackroyd’s stepson, Ralph, who is a popular young man locally.

Agatha Christie died 47 years
ago today at the age of 85

After many twists and turns, Poirot gathers all the suspects together in his sitting room after dinner one night and reveals the extraordinary and unexpected identity of the killer.

According to The Home of Agatha Christie, the author’s own website, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was ‘the book that changed Agatha Christie’s career’. It was the first of her novels to be published by William Collins, which later became part of HarperCollins, who remain Agatha’s publishers today and attracted enormous attention in the media at the time.

Following her death, Agatha Christie's body was buried four days later after a service at St Mary’s Church in the village of Cholsey in Oxfordshire.

The inscription on her tombstone is a quotation from Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queen:

‘Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,

Ease after war, death after life, does greatly please.’

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is available from or

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