Just finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd… and the book’s introduction by Louise Penny spoiled the ending for me :/

I know it’s a little silly to grumble about having the ending of a ~100-year-old book spoiled, but still… why would the publisher include an introduction that spoils the ending?? Louise Penny’s introduction >!doesn’t directly name the murderer, but it talks about how the book betrays the “contract between reader and writer.” When I read that, I immediately thought that there had to be an unreliable narrator, and I read the whole book with that suspicion in mind. I didn’t catch every single clue, but I definitely noticed the “blank ten minutes” that the doctor refers to in the final chapter when they occurred in chapter four. And I figured out right away that no one but the doctor heard the person on the other end of the phonecall.!<

I still had a good time reading it, so it wasn’t completely ruined. But I do wish I hadn’t read the introduction. Has anyone else had this experience?

by beatrixotter