What are the main characters with descriptions?

Dr. James Sheppard is the novel’s narrator is a physician in the town of King’s Abbott. He serves as a companion-chronicler to Hercule Poirot, the brilliant detective who will eventually crack the very complicated case. Although Sheppard appears to be a genial, straightforward character, his complicity in the mystery will prove one of the great plot-twists of all time. Ultimately, Dr. Sheppard is revealed to be a shrewd, duplicitous, detached villain.

Caroline Sheppard is Dr. Sheppard’s older spinster sister is a voracious gossip who uses a network of servants as informants to gather all sorts of information on anyone who piques her interest. She is unsatisfied unless she knows about all the goings-on in the town, and usually interjects her opinions on things, especially when unprovoked. Agatha Christie later admitted that Caroline served as a model for her famous Miss Marple character, the spinster detective who pokes her nose in everyone else’s business.

Hercule Poirot, perhaps Agatha Christie’s most famous character, appears in 33 novels and over 60 short stories. A retired Belgian detective, Poirot is small in stature but full of self-importance. He is a brilliant detective, relying on his own logic and critical thinking skills (rather than an obsession over physical facts and clues) in order to determine the truth of the crime. He treats everyone as a suspect, and takes no statement or allegation for granted. Instead, he painstakingly verifies all testimonies while privately forming his own hypotheses, only revealing the truth when he is sure of his suspicions.

Mrs. Ferrars, although she never appears as a living character in the novel, nonetheless plays an important role in the plot. A nervous woman who, according to Caroline, couldn’t stand her alcoholic husband, she poisoned him in order to escape from his abusiveness. However, the financial strain of being blackmailed for this crime, as well as the guilt over the crime itself, led her to kill herself, but not before asking her close companion Roger Ackroyd to avenge her against the blackmailer.

For a complete list of characters, check out GradeSaver's character page in its study guide for the unit.