Ordeal by Innocence

The Argyle family has gone through a bit of a rough patch. The mother, Rachel, had been brutally murdered in their home. Jacko, the black sheep of the family, was convicted of the murder, and died in prison six months later. The family learns to accept the sad truth and move on.

However, the old wound is torn open a year and a half after Jacko's death by a visit from a man named Arthur Calgary. Calgary is able to provide Jacko with a perfect alibi for Rachel's murder, proving him innocent. Thus, the Argyles must face the terrifying truth: the murderer is still among them.

It's a catchy hook, so it's too bad the book isn't actually that exciting.

Ordeal by Innocence is pretty much your run-of-the-mill mediocre Christie. It's not horrible, but it's not good either. The premise is reasonably interesting, but it doesn't do anything special with it, and there are a couple of factors that work together to bring the book down.

Since the murder happened two years prior, we don't get a traditional investigation. Instead, we just jump between all the members of the Argyle family as they deal with the doubt and suspicion that's suddenly been sewn among them. There's no firm direction for the plot, and no central detective.

The book probably would have been more enjoyable if the characters were entertaining, but they're not. The Argyle household is an absolute wreck—all the Argyle children were adopted and ended up with resentment issues against Rachel, and Rachel's husband was basically emotionally abandoned by his wife. Dysfunctional families can be fun (as horrible as that sounds), but it's not a guarantee, apparently. There's also what feels like a weird undercurrent of classism and racism throughout the book (and maybe a bit of sexism, for good measure), which made it kind of awkward.

The mediocre characters and plot developments probably would have been fine if the payoff was worth it, but it's not. The story is a classic Christie plot that has "a" solution rather than "the" solution. It's a mystery about human relationships and emotions, not evidence and testimony. While the solution is the most gratifying answer emotionally, it's still the case that everyone had an opportunity and the evidence could've allowed anyone to be the killer. I want to stress again that Ordeal by Innocence really just feels like a "standard" Christie story with all her most common tropes. I swear I've seen what was basically the sole clue that pointed towards the culprit in another Christie book (although I can't remember exactly which one), and if you've read a couple of Christie books you can probably guess the "shocking" plot development in the last act.

It's a mystery, it's well-written, it all comes together in the end. It's not actively bad. It's just another Christie. Christie also tackled the "murder from the past" plot in Five Little Pigs, and did it much better there. Read that instead.