17 MARCH 2007, Page 30

Evil ‘I’

Sir: Allan Massie (Books, 3 March) missed a chance to bring up again the story of the most (in)famous use of the first person singular in English literature, i.e. the case of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (1926), in which novel she made the ‘I’ of her story also the murderer. Readers and critics felt truly deceived at the time and I think there were even established firm rules against such ‘dirty tricks’ in the future. (‘No twins’ was another one.) Paul Jacobs

Mortsel, Belgium