Roger Ackroyd
Created by Jules Feiffer

New York cartoonist Jules Feiffer's Ackroyd (1977) is a rather strange book, taking the form of the diary of one ROGER ACKROYD (a tip of the fedora to Agatha Christie's classic The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), a neurotic young P.I. who becomes obsessed with one of his very first clients, Oscar Plante, a newspaper columnist.

The book, subtitled "A Mystery of Identity," covers several years of Roger's (and Oscar's) life.

It drew wide praise at the time, although I found the humour occasionally uneven, with long, pointless and even just plain dumb stretches. There are some good lines in this one, and the plot is certainly original enough (at times reminiscent of Marc Behn's The Eye), but the satire served up here doesn't so much bite as nibble.

Still, if you want something peculiar...

UNDER OATH

• "Sneaky and brilliant."
  -- The San Francisco Examiner
  
  
• "Wildly funny...flawless dialogue"
  -- Newsweek

NOVELS

• Ackroyd (1977) . Buy this book

Report submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.