Ordeal by Innocence
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Cover artist | Not known |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
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Publication date
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3 November 1958 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| Preceded by | 4.50 From Paddington |
| Followed by | Cat Among the Pigeons |
Ordeal by Innocence is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 3 November 1958 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at twelve shillings and sixpence (12/6) and the US edition at $2.95. It is regarded by critics as one of the best of her later works, and was also one of Christie's two favourites of her own novels, the other being Crooked House.
While serving a sentence for killing Rachel Argyle, his adoptive mother – a crime he insisted he didn't commit – Jacko Argyle dies in prison. His own widow, Maureen, believed him to be responsible. Two years later, the man who could have supported Jacko's alibi suddenly turns up; and the family must come to terms with the fact not only that one of them is the real murderer, but also that suspicion falls upon each of them. Christie's focus in this novel is upon the psychology of innocence, as the family members struggle with their suspicions of one another.
The witness, Arthur Calgary, who was unaware of the events and thus failed to come forward and not otherwise locatable by the police, believed the family would be grateful once he cleared their son's name. He failed to realise the implications of this information. However, once he does so, he is determined to protect the innocent by finding the murderer. To be able to do so, he visits the retired local doctor, Dr MacMaster, to ask him about the now-cleared murderer, Jacko Argyle. MacMaster states that he was surprised when Jacko killed his mother. Not because he thought that murder was outside Jacko's 'moral range', but because he thought Jacko would be too cowardly to kill somebody himself; that, if he wanted to murder somebody, he would egg on an accomplice to do his dirty work. MacMaster says "the kind of murder I'd have expected Jacko to do, if he did one, was the type where a couple of boys go out on a raid; then, when the police come after them, the Jackos say 'Biff him on the head, Bud. Let him have it. Shoot him down.' They're willing for murder, ready to incite to murder, but they've not got the nerve to do murder themselves with their own hands." This description seems to be a reference to the Craig and Bentley case which had occurred in 1952.
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