Roger Ackroyd: The Killer Murder

The book that changed Christie's career – with Harriet Tyce, Tony Medawar and Victoria Dowd

Roger Ackroyd was a man who knew too much. He knew the woman he loved had poisoned her first husband. He knew someone was blackmailing her – and now he knew she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. Soon the evening post would let him know who the mystery blackmailer was. But Ackroyd was dead before he’d finished reading it – stabbed through the neck where he sat in the study.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is now 100 years old, yet it is undiminished in its impact. One century on since Roger Ackroyd met an untimely end in his study, join an evening that revels in the enduring power of this astonishing and pioneering work of fiction.

Please note: there is no way to appreciate its brilliance without spoilers, so the book is essential reading before attending this event!

Supported by Great Western Railway.

Our exhibition, Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery, is in collaboration with Agatha Christie Limited and The Christie Archive Trust.

She grew up in Edinburgh and studied English at Oxford University before doing a law conversion course at City University. After practising as a criminal barrister in London for nearly a decade, she subsequently completed an MA in Creative Writing – Crime Fiction at the University of East Anglia. Her first novel, Blood Orange, published in 2019 to huge critical acclaim and she has since written multiple Sunday Times bestsellers. In 2026, Harriet was a contestant on series 4 of The Traitors. Witch Trial is her fifth novel.

He has edited more than 30 books, including the long-running series of mystery anthologies Bodies from the Library and Ghosts from the Library, published by HarperCollins, and he compiled The Quotable Miss Marple, and While the Light Lasts, the final collection of previously uncollected stories by Agatha Christie. Tony was also a member of the advisory panel for the British Library’s Exhibition, Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery. Previously, he developed stories for the game 221B Baker Street, and he currently edits the Vintage Crime series for Profile Books.

Her novel, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder, won The People’s Book Prize for fiction and was In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel’s Book of the Year. She was awarded the Gothic Fiction prize. Victoria is the Vice Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and was a criminal defence barrister. The latest novel in her historical crime series is Threefold Death. Her standalone novel, The New Rules of Murder, will be published by Sphere in June next year.