The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work by a duck.
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie , Lady Mallowan , DBE ( née Miller ; 15 September 1890 -- 12 January 1976 ) was an English crime novelist , short story writer and playwright . She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple . She also wrote the world 's longest-running play , a murder mystery , The Mousetrap , and six romances under the name Mary Westmacott . She served in a Devon hospital during the First World War , tending to troops coming back from the trenches , before marrying and starting a family in London . During the Second World War she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital , London during the Blitz and acquired a good knowledge of poisons which featured in many of her novels . The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie , first published in June 1926 in the United Kingdom by William Collins , Sons and in the United States by Dodd , Mead and Company on 19 June 1926 .