When Jacko Argyle was convicted of murdering his mother, his family wasn't particularly surprised. He had always been the "black sheep" of the family. He had quarreled with his mother shortly before the murder - he needed money badly, and his mother wouldn't give it to him. His fingerprints were all over the murder weapon and he was carrying money that his mother had just withdrawn from the bank. But Jacko wasn't worried - he had a perfect alibi: he had been hitchhiking far from home on the night of the murder, and when that driver came forward to confirm that story, Jacko would be in the clear.
Only the person who was supposed to come forward and confirm Jacko's alibi never showed up to tell his story. Police couldn't trace him. And with all the other evidence against him, the young man was tried and convicted. Sentenced to life in prison, Jacko died of pneumonia there just six months later, and the members of the Argyle family tried to get on with their lives. And then, far too late, that missing driver turned up to confirm Jacko's alibi - and that meant Jacko could not have been the killer.
And that, of course, meant that someone else - someone within the family - must be a murderer...
It happens in one of Agatha Christie's darkest novels, Ordeal by Innocence, originally published in 1958. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.
Ordeal by Innocence was first published in 1958. It is a stand-alone mystery – that is, you won’t find Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple or any of Christie's other series characters. But you will find some nicely-developed and memorable characters in a story that, by Agatha Christie’s standards, was darker than the plots of many of those series books, as a family struggles to maintain its relationships in the face of overwhelming evidence that one of them must be a murderer.
Agatha Christie is said to have considered Ordeal by Innocence to be one of her most satisfying books. Too often, I hear from readers who complain that Christie could plot nicely but rarely provided "real" characters. Well, there’s quite a good plot here, with Christie's usual mixture of superb misdirection and hidden clues, but there is also the pain of the Argyle family, which must suffer through this ordeal of innocence. The book is definitely worth your reading time.
Comments