About this production
Most detective novels have a narrator. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has an author. The book is presented as a manuscript written by Dr. James Sheppard, the village physician of King's Abbot, who sets down the events of the case as he witnessed them — and the last chapter is titled "Apologia," which is what a man writes at the end of a document, not at the end of a story. That distinction is the whole novel. Christie published it in June 1926, and in 2013 the British Crime Writers' Association voted it the best crime novel ever written. What keeps it there, a century on, is what she does with the person holding the pen.
Which creates a specific problem for audio. In a single-voice reading, the reader and the narrator collapse into each other by default: one performer speaks the descriptive passages and also speaks Sheppard, so there is no audible seam between the man reporting the case and the man living in it. The novel's central manoeuvre depends on that seam existing and on the listener not attending to it. Cast Sheppard as a character among characters — a doctor with a gossiping sister and a professional interest in what is discovered in that study — and he takes his place in the ensemble rather than floating above it. He is present at the dinner, in the surgery, at the card table, and in the room for the final reunion, and he sounds like a participant throughout, because he is one.
The village does the rest of the work. King's Abbot runs on talk, and the production's longest chapters are the ones where people are in a room together getting things wrong: "Dinner at Fernly" at 30 minutes, where Ackroyd tells Sheppard that Mrs. Ferrars confessed to poisoning her husband and was being blackmailed, then insists on reading her letter alone; "The Parlormaid" at 29 minutes; "I Learn My Neighbor's Profession" at 27 minutes, where Poirot — retired to the next-door cottage and losing a quiet battle with his vegetable marrows — agrees to take the case on the condition that he can pursue all of the truth, wherever it goes. Best of all is "An Evening at Mah Jong" at 20 minutes, a chapter that is nothing but four neighbours playing tiles and constructing increasingly wild theories about a missing man. It is comedy, it is misdirection, and it is four distinct voices talking across each other — which is to say it is written for a cast and merely tolerated by a solo reading. If you want the reasoning behind decisions like these, does your book need a full-cast audiobook? works through when an ensemble earns its keep, and the mystery and detective audiobook production guide covers how a whodunit is paced and clued in audio.
Then the ending, which is shaped like nothing else in the genre. After "Poirot's Little Reunion" — 25 minutes, the full drawing-room assembly, the chair and the dictaphone and the footprints — the novel stops expanding and starts closing: 8 minutes, then 14, then 7, then 5. Those last four chapters run under 35 minutes combined, against 30 for the dinner party alone. Christie spends twenty-three chapters widening the field of suspicion and four narrowing it to a single person in a single room, and the acceleration is something you feel in a continuous listen far more sharply than you notice it on the page. The production carries all 27 chapters in order, unabridged, at 8 hours, free to listen from the breakfast table to the apologia.
By the numbers
- Format: Full-cast dramatized audiobook
- Chapters: 29 (all 27 chapters of the novel, plus opening and end credits)
- Runtime: 8h 0m
- Production: AI character voices, original music, and sound effects
- Price: Free to listen
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Start your first chapter free →FAQ
Is this audiobook AI-narrated?
Yes. Every voice in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is AI-generated and produced by Midsummerr, with an original score and sound design. AI narration is disclosed as such on retail platforms that require it.
How long is the audiobook?
About 8h 0m across 29 chapters.
Is the whole novel included, or an abridgement?
The whole novel. All 27 chapters are present in order, from "Dr. Sheppard at the Breakfast Table" through to "Apologia." Nothing is abridged or bundled away.
Why does it list 29 chapters when the novel has 27?
The extra two are production chapters, not story: opening and end credits. The novel itself is complete at 27.
Does the production spoil the ending?
No. The solution is revealed where Christie reveals it, in the final chapters, and nothing in the casting or the score tips it earlier.
Who is Caroline Sheppard?
The narrator's sister, and the engine of most of the village's information. Christie later acknowledged her as a possible precursor to Miss Marple, which makes this production an unusual place to hear where that character came from.
Can I listen from anywhere?
The novel is in the public domain in the United States, but Agatha Christie's work is still under copyright in the United Kingdom and the EU. This title is available to listen everywhere except those territories.
Where can I listen?
Listen free at midsummerr.com/listen/the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd.
