Reading_unit_11_lesson2

Reading_unit_11_lesson2

The best crime novel - ever

Part 1

British crime novelist Agatha Christie may have started her writing career back in the 1920s but she remains a goldmine for her publishers — she's the world's best selling novelist with two billion copies sold. If you haven't read her, then a good start is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, long regarded as one of the cornerstones of crime fiction and voted the best crime novel ever by the Crime Writers' Association in 2013. Featuring the hero of her novels, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, the book has a plot twist that has gone down in crime-writing history as fiendishly clever.

Multiple Choice

Evidence for Agatha Christie's continuing success is that firstly, ... and secondly ...

• she's the world's best-selling novelist and 2 billion copies of her novels have been sold

• She was a famous writer

• Both options are correct

The story is narrated by a doctor, the well-respected James Sheppard. In the tranquil English village where he lives, a wealthy woman, Mrs Ferrars, has just committed suicide. The gossip is that just over a year previously, she had murdered her husband, a very cruel man. Almost immediately after her death, Sheppard has dinner with Roger Ackroyd, a rich widower and Mrs Ferrars' fiancé.

The distraught Ackroyd tells Doctor Sheppard that Mrs Ferrars had confessed to him not only that she had killed her husband but that someone had been blackmailing her as a result

Multiple Choice

Mrs Ferrars was being blackmailed because ______

• She wanted to collect the insurance

• Mrs Ferrars was being blackmailed because she had killed her husband.

• Neither answer is correct

While with Sheppard, Ackroyd receives a letter from Mrs Ferrars explaining how the blackmailer has driven her to kill herself. Halfway through the letter, he puts the letter down:

Ackroyd, his finger on the sheet to turn it over, paused.

“Sheppard, forgive me, but I must read this alone, ” he said unsteadily. “It was meant for my eyes, and my eyes only. ” He put the letter in the envelope and laid it on the table.

Multiple Choice

The reason why Mrs Ferrars killed herself was ...

• The reason Mrs Ferrars killed herself was because someone was blackmailing her.

• Beacuse of the money

• Because of her lover

“Later, when I am alone. ”

“No, ” I cried impulsively, “read it now.”

Ackroyd stared at me in some surprise.

“I beg your pardon, ” I said, reddening. “I do not mean read it aloud to me. But read it through whilst I am still here. ”

Ackroyd shook his head.

“No, I’d rather wait. ”

But for some reason, obscure to myself, I continued to urge him.

“At least, read the name of the man, ”

 I said.

Now Ackroyd is essentially pig headed.

The more you urge him to do a thing, the more determined

he is not to do it. All my arguments were in vain.

Multiple Choice

Although Sheppard urged ..., Ackroyd ...

• to pay the rescue he refused

• to stop blacmailing to Mrs Ferrars

• Although Sheppard urged Ackroyd to read out the name of the blackmailer, Ackroyd refused to do so.

The letter had been brought in at

wenty minutes to nine. It was just on ten minutes to nine when I left him, the letter still unread. I hesitated with my hand on the doorhandle, looking back and wondering if there was anything I had left undone. I could think of nothing.

With a shake of the head I passed out and closed the door behind me.

On returning home, Sheppard receives  a mysterious phone call informing him that Ackroyd has been murdered. He returns to Ackroyd's house to discover his study locked from the inside. The doctor and Ackroyd's butler break the door down and discover the window open and Ackroyd dead at his desk with a knife in his neck.

Multiple Select

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• yes

• No

• I don't like reading