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Crooked House (Agatha Christie Collection) (Hardcover)

by Agatha Christie (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Collins Crime; New Ed edition (4 Dec 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0002311097
  • ISBN-13: 978-0002311090
  • Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 519,088 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Synopsis

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...


About the Author

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 100 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

18 Reviews
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 (6)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Ageing, but retains its charms, 4 Mar 2009
By Budge Burgess (Kilmarnock, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Crooked House (Agatha Christie Collection) (Paperback)
Published in 1949 and her 49th book, this is Christie in her natural environment - a mystery set in the claustrophobic confines of a close-knit extended family living, or is that imprisoned together in a large but oppressively incestuous, not entirely stately home. A crooked old man has collected his extended family together in a crooked house where they live in apparent harmony and actual mutual suspicion and animosity. His sudden death plunges the family into a vortex of self-destruction. Finding the killer will not be easy - is anyone really telling the truth? Fortunately, the police have a Trojan Horse - a man with connections to the family and a background in investigation.

This is not a bad little mystery, though its novelty and vision may have paled a little over the decades. The social psychology of this far from happy family is neatly explored and dissected, suspicion being cast broadly, then narrowed down to a couple of suspects, then broadened out again. The use of a boyfriend (potentially fiancé of one of the family) as the police infiltrator is perhaps a little difficult to believe in the 21st century - it's incomprehensible when compared with contemporary police procedurals. And the romance, itself, is so formal and stultifying as to be incomprehensible to modern tastes. But, step outside the anachronistic social structure and gentility of the setting and this remains an excellent mystery, ground-breaking in its day.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Crooked House, 17 Oct 2005
By Rich Milligan (Thatcham, Berkshire) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Crooked House (Agatha Christie Collection) (Paperback)
Apparently "Crooked House" was one of the few books that Agatha Christie herself was truly satisfied with upon its completion. Certainly it's an entertaining romp around the totally dysfunctional family of Aristide Leonides and there's many an amusing character to enjoy.

Charles Hayward is a young man making his way with a promising career with the foreign office. In a posting to Egypt he meets the beautiful Sophia Leonides and the two fall in love. Charles plans to marry Sophia but the couple decide to give themselves time to see if their feelings for each other are strong enough. After a gap Charles meets Sophia back in London but tragedy has struck the Leonides family as Sophia's grandfather and the family's patriarch Aristide has been found murdered in his house. Sophia feels that until the cloud of suspicion is lifted from the family she cannot marry Charles.

Charles's father is none other than the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard and along with Chief Inspector Taverner he is sent to the family home in Swinly Dean to see if there are any clues to come to light whilst being "an insider". The family home is a curious building of three separate dwellings comprised into one building, giving it the nick name of "Crooked House". In one part lives Sophia's parents, her remote father Philip, her excitable and effected mother Magda and her sulky brother Eustace and sneaky sister Josephine. Upstairs lives Philip's brother the hearty but incompetent Roger and his wife the cold and calm Clemency.

As far as Sophia's immediate family are concerned the person most likely to have committed the crime is Aristide's second wife Brenda who was 50 years younger than her ex-husband. She is supposedly having an affair with the children's tutor the limp and insipid Lawrence, but to Charles Brenda strikes a very pathetic figure and he suspects the murderer is someone else.

The maze of clues and red herrings is as strong as ever and this book benefits with Charles "the detective" working alongside the police but also having unlimited access to the other family members via his relationship with Sophia. That said Sophia herself is a most unsympathetic and unlikeable character and I guess I won't be the first reader to suspect her of the crimes herself.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent murder mystery, with a very crooked twist., 29 Jan 2001
By A Customer
One of the best and most original murder mysteries that I've read, the family around which the whole plot revolves are all astoundingly different, they add their own tensions to an already confused situation, the murder victim is someone we should never like but do, in fact its even possible to have sympathy with the gold digger wife. The ending took me completely by suprise, altogether one of my most enjoyable reads this year.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A neat story, well told
I have read many Agatha Christie novels over the years, and usually enjoy them. This one I particularly enjoyed. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr. M. Kay

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent nostalgia
Highly enjoyable piece of nostalgia. I first read this book at fourteen, I was a mad Agatha Christie fan at the time and read all her mystery novels. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Elizabeth-Anne

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of talk, not too much action
A readable but rather slow moving book; the underlying crime problem is very well conceived and briliantly understood - the solution works. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Tim Lintott

2.0 out of 5 stars Sender fine, product so-so
I caught the final episode of a serial of this production on radio and, being intrigued and also an Anna Maxwell Martin fan (ever since she starred in 'His Dark Materials' at... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Beric Norman

3.0 out of 5 stars This one was just too easy
Agatha Christie thought this was one of her best and said it had been a pleasure to write.
But for the first time ever, I guessed whodunnit ... Read more
Published 14 months ago by booksetc

4.0 out of 5 stars AGATHAS FAVOURITE
THIS NOVEL WAS ONE OF AGATHA CHRISTIES FAVOURITES.IT DOESNT FEATURE ANY OF THE REGULAR DETECTIVES BUT RATHER A YOUNG MAN NAMED CHARLES WHO NEEDS TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF A MURDER... Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2007 by SARA

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW!!!
This is an absolutely brilliant book and it is definitely one of her best. Though, this is definitely not her most complicated book, it doesn't matter because it is so good. Read more
Published on 6 Sep 2007 by I AM ME

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb!
This was one of Dame Agatha's own personal favourites, and I can see why. Aristide Leonides, an elderly Greek restaurant tycoon, is poisoned. Read more
Published on 22 Jun 2006 by S. Hapgood

4.0 out of 5 stars a fine mystery, though too easy to solve to be her greatest
I would recommend this book for fellow Agatha Christie fans, if for no other reason then because Dame Agatha herself liked it. Read more
Published on 7 Nov 2004 by flipper

3.0 out of 5 stars Crooked House
In this stock account of the poisoning of a Greek tycoon by a close family member, there is far more conversation than deduction, far more discovery of possible motive than... Read more
Published on 12 Jul 2003 by hacklehorn

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