The truth, no matter how ugly it is, always appears special and beautiful to the eyes of the one who seeks it. Roger Ackroyd was a man who knew a lot. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her first husband. He knew that someone was blackmailing her – and now he also knew that she had ended her life with an overdose of barbiturates. A letter that arrived with the evening mail would soon reveal to him who the mysterious blackmailer was. But Roger Ackroyd would never find this out. Before he could finish reading the letter, he was dead – stabbed in the neck in his office.

In King's Abbot, the village where all this happens, Hercule Poirot had retired incognito to rest. However, the murder of Roger Ackroyd will force him to take action again…