Crooked House

by Agatha Christie

Volume 48 in the Agatha Christie Collection (1949) Limited edition of 1000 copies worldwide The Leonides were one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That was until the head of the household, Aristide, was murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiance of the late millionare's granddaughter...

• ISBN10: 031298166X
• ISBN13: 9780312981662
• Publish Date: 19 August 2002 (first published December 1971)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 8 February 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St. Martin's Press
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 276
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

I checked this BBC Adaptation of from my library because I was in a hurry and it said "unabridged", but it has to be abridged somehow.  It was only 1 hour and 45 minutes long?  It's a full cast dramatisation though, and perhaps that allowed it to tell the full story without all the descriptive text and 'he said' stuff.   

Either way, it was an excellent production, although it's obviously meant to be seen as well as heard, so some of the sound effects didn't work as well as they could have (the 'love' scenes just sounded... damp).  I thoroughly enjoyed the production once I got used to the format.  But I will read this book in print at some point; I want to know if I've missed any subtleties that Christie is famous for.    

The story is one of my favorites so far - definitely darker than her usual, but not as bad as I feared at all.  I admit I guessed the murderer, but only because I suspect the actor played the part too well.  Something was said midway - I can't even remember what - and I thought, it's probably 'x'.  I was never sure, and Christie almost let me astray at one point, but the reveal wasn't the shocking twist it might have been.  It didn't diminish my enjoyment in the least.   

I have one other of these dramatisations checked out for Murder on the Links and I'm going to go ahead and listen to it (I think golf is boring, so I need the drama), but after that I'll take the time to hunt down the full, true audiobooks of Christie's work; at least for the first read.

[Cameron Trost]

Crooked House starts slowly but gathers momentum towards the end. Not Christie's most well-written book and the ending wasn't the surprise it was supposed to be for this reader. That said, if you don't see it coming, it'll be a dizzying twist for you. I guess the only way to know is to read it. In short, although this is one of Christie's personal favourites, I don't think it's an example of her at her breathtaking best.

[brokentune]

There was a crooked man
and he went a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence
beside a crooked stile.
He had a crooked cat
which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together
in a little crooked house.

Crooked House is a stand-alone novel. I.e. it does not feature any of Christie's established sleuths (Marple, Poirot, Tommy & Tuppence, etc.).

The story tells of a young couple, Charles and Sophia, who decide to postpone any decisions on getting married until after the war. Once the time has come the engagement is again interrupted by a death in Sophia's family.

From then on, trust is put to the test and motives are questioned. Everyone is a suspect and it is left to the couple to discover whom they can believe, or if they can at all.

What is interesting with this story is the finding out who the murderer is almost takes a backseat to getting to know the characters of Sophia's relatives. What an interesting bunch of eccentrics! They are all suffering from a past dominated by the misanthropic grandfather who claimed to have killed two people in his youth.

It's a marvellously dark story and it is easy to see why it was one of Dame Agatha's favourite mysteries.