Poirot has taken a cottage in the village of King's Abbot, with the intention of retiring. Then a widow seems to kill herself, and local gossip claims she had murdered her husband, was having an affair with the rich Roger Ackroyd and was being blackmailed.

Poirot tries to not to be drawn out of his garden, but when Roger Ackroyd is killed, he is unimpressed by the way the police are working and reluctantly decides it's up to him to crack the case. In the end, he realizes that village life and retirement are not for him, after all.