Celebrating a Ground-Breaking Crime Novel

27 May 2026

June 2026 marks one hundred years since the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.  Her famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot, is asked to investigate the stabbing, which happens in Ackroyd’s own library after hosting a dinner party. The case is written from the point of view of Dr Sheppard, who appears as a kind of Dr Watson character chronicling the events. This was a ground-breaking work, not only for the author, bringing a huge amount of acclaim, but also for its original use of a super-surprise twist near the end.

Books with twists have been hugely popular ever since, similarly unreliable narrators, who can make things unpredictable in numerous ways. Here’s a few more twisty novels that catch you by surprise.

Forensic psychotherapist Theo Faber has a difficult case in The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. Alicia Berenson murdered her husband but has not spoken in the five years since. At the Grove, a secure forensic unit in London, Theo is determined to get her to talk, a kind of obsession that throws a shadow over his own motivations.

Probably not the only twisty book by Alice Feeney, Beautiful Ugly follows author Grady Green, whose life has spiralled out of control ever since the disappearance of his wife. Unable to find closure, grieve, let alone write, he is urged to spend a few months on a mysterious Scottish island to complete a new manuscript for his publishers. Only things don’t go quite to plan.

In None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell we have two very different narrators, privileged podcaster Alix and struggling Josie, a wife to a much older man. A chance encounter leads Josie to feel she can trust Alix with her story. Josie’s revelations are unsettling and compelling, drawing Alix into Josie’s world. There are dark secrets lurking which Alix is determined to uncover, but at what cost?

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray is an astonishing read about a family in Ireland, once comfortably off but now the family business is going under. Instead of fixing the problem, Dickie is building a bunker in the woods with a crazy handyman friend, not realising what’s going wrong with his family. This is a very engaging story that will draw you in and deliver a sucker punch.

In The Word Is Murder author Anthony Horowitz has written himself into what appears a classic crime novel, a Watson to a modern-day Holmes. It follows disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne as he investigates the death of Diana Cowper who, mere hours before, was planning her own funeral. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to chronicle his life and that’s where Horowitz comes in. A master storyteller, Anthony Horowitz has created his own original brand of crime novel, which also happens to have a few twists and surprises.

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