Crooked House by Agatha Christie

Crooked House

by Agatha Christie

A wealthy Greek businessman is found dead at his London home…

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…

Reviewed by MurderByDeath on

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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.

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Reading updates

  • 29 January, 2018: Started reading
  • 2 February, 2018: Finished reading
  • 6 October, 2020: Reviewed