Ordeal By Innocence
(Agatha Christie)
Ordeal by innocence and crooked house are described by Agatha Christie in her autobiography as the two detective stories that satisfied her the most.
Ordeal by Innocence is unusual in that it is what might be termed a ?retrospective? whodunit. The actual murder had taken place two years previously, and a suspect tried and found guilty.
While serving a sentence for killing his mother - a crime he insisted he didn't commit - Jacko Argyle dies in prison. Two years later, the man who could have supported Jacko's alibi suddenly turns up, and the family must come to terms with the fact not only that suspicion falls upon each of them, but that one of them is the real murderer. Christie's focus in this novel is upon the psychology of innocence, as the family members struggle with their suspicions of one another.
While two outsiders attempt to find the murderer, it is an insider - Philip Durrant - whose clumsy efforts to uncover the truth force the killer to strike again. Ultimately it is revealed that the murderer was indeed acting under the influence of Jacko Argyle, and that the failure of his (carefully planned) alibi was, in hindsight, an ironic stroke of Fate.
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