The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Poirot has retired, and he is getting on with it nicely. Then Roger Ackroyd is murdered, and the quiet dies with him. Ackroyd was an industrialist and a friend, found dead in his own home not long after a local widow, suspected of killing her husband, took her own life. Two deaths in one small community is bad arithmetic. Poirot comes out of retirement before the second funeral is cold, and the puzzle that greets him includes the disappearance of Ackroyd's adopted son, Ralph Paton.

But the household at Fernly is thick with people who had reasons. Caroline Sheppard is sharp-eyed and pleased with herself, her relative Ursula Bourne moves quietly through the rooms, and Geoffrey Raymond, the secretary, knows more than he lets on. Flora Ackroyd wants Ralph found for the best and worst reasons. Dr Sheppard hovers at the edge of things, and Parker the butler hovers behind him. Chief Inspector Japp arrives to do the official version while Poirot does the real one.

Malcolm Terris plays Roger Ackroyd, and the cast around him is a treat: Oliver Ford Davies as Dr Sheppard, Selina Cadell as Caroline, Daisy Beaumont as Ursula, Flora Montgomery as Flora, Nigel Cooke as Geoffrey Raymond, Jamie Bamber as Ralph Paton and Roger Frost as Parker. Agatha Christie wrote the story and Clive Exton shaped it for the screen, with Andrew Grieve directing. David Suchet carries the whole thing as Poirot, with Philip Jackson's Japp along for the ride.

The book is the Christie title everyone has heard of, the one with the twist that changed the rules of detective fiction, and the adaptation plays fair with that reputation. The ending still lands even when you know it is coming. The case is about grief as much as guilt, and Poirot, of all detectives, is the one to sit with it. Watching him step out of retirement and back into the world of the living is the real pleasure here. He does not look sorry to be back.