See buying choices for this item to see if it's one of the millions that are eligible for Amazon Prime.

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Crooked House
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Crooked House (Mass Market Paperback)

by Agatha Christie (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


8 used from £0.87
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover (New Ed) 10 used & new from £0.84
Paperback (Masterpiece Ed) £6.99 £5.24 36 used & new from £0.52
Mass Market Paperback Order it used
Library Binding Order it used
Audio CD (Audiobook) £7.00 £7.00 25 used & new from £4.24
Show more editions and formats

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Endless Night (BBC Audio)

Endless Night (BBC Audio)

by Agatha Christie
4.4 out of 5 stars (17)  £4.84
The Moving Finger (BBC Audio Crime)

The Moving Finger (BBC Audio Crime)

by Agatha Christie
4.1 out of 5 stars (11)  £4.99
Dead Man's Folly (BBC Audio Crime)

Dead Man's Folly (BBC Audio Crime)

by Agatha Christie
£7.00
Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery (BBC Audio Crime)

Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery (BBC Audio Crime)

by Francis Durbridge
3.5 out of 5 stars (4)  £12.33
Three Radio Mysteries: v.1: Three BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisations Vol 1 (BBC Radio Collection)

Three Radio Mysteries: v.1: Three BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisations Vol 1 (BBC Radio Collection)

by Agatha Christie
2.5 out of 5 stars (2)  £4.90
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 235 pages
  • Publisher: Harpercollins (Mm); Reissue edition (Aug 1997)
  • ISBN-10: 0061002771
  • ISBN-13: 978-0061002779
  • Product Dimensions: 16.8 x 9.9 x 1.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

About the Author
Agatha Christie is the best-selling author of all time. She has sold over 2 billion novels worldwide and has been translated into more languages than any other single writer.

Born on 15 September 1890 in Devon, England, her career spanned six decades in which time she published 80 novels and short story collections and 19 plays. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles published in 1920, was written as a result of a challenge from her sister. In it she would introduce to the world Hercule Poirot, one of the most famous fictional characters of all time. Poirot would appear in over 80 novels and short stories. Nine years later Agatha created Miss Marple - a spinster sleuth who would become so popular she would rival Poirot in the nation's affections.

Her writing won her many fans including the royal family. When Queen Mary was approaching her 80th birthday, the BBC asked how she would want them to celebrate it. She requested a new Christie play! Three Blind Mice was duly written for the radio; it would later be adapted into The Mousetrap and become the longest continuously running play in history.

Although best known for her detective fiction, Christie also wrote a number of books that give us insight into her world. Her autobiography, published the year after her death provides a full, and often humorous, account of her life and Come, Tell Me How You Live chronicles her travels as the wife of a world famous archaeologist, on digs in the Middle East.

Agatha Christie had a truly remarkable life; she was a very private lady though her love of travel and archaeology shines through in her work. Her most famous novel Murder on the Orient Express celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2009 and was inspired by her own travels on the train, when she too became stranded due to weather.

After a hugely successful career and a very happy life Agatha died peacefully on 12 January 1976. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
Check a corresponding box or enter your own tags in the field below
mystery
agatha christie
british mysteries
women writers
mystery novel
mystery and suspense
mysteries and thrillers
mysteries
murder mystery
agatha

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Crooked House
69% buy the item featured on this page:
Crooked House 4.1 out of 5 stars (17)
Endless Night (BBC Audio)
14% buy
Endless Night (BBC Audio) 4.4 out of 5 stars (17)
£4.84
Peril at End House: BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection)
8% buy
Peril at End House: BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection) 4.3 out of 5 stars (3)
£4.90
The Moving Finger (BBC Audio Crime)
5% buy
The Moving Finger (BBC Audio Crime) 4.1 out of 5 stars (11)
£4.99
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
2 of 2 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.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
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.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
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
This review is from: Crooked House (Agatha Christie Collection) (Hardcover)
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.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

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 1 month 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 2 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 5 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 10 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 20 months ago 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 22 months ago 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

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!
I am a huge Agatha Christie fan and tend to really enjoy all of her books. However, Crooked House is one of the best! Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2003

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (1 discussion)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
Clown on the cover? 0 October 2007
› See all discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Feedback

The Body Shop

The Body Shop - Vitamin C Skin Boost
Protect and boost your glow with The Body Shop Vitamin C Skin Boost.

›Shop The Body Shop

  

Let Olay Amaze You

Olay Total Effects Day Moisturiser SPF15 50ml
Amazon.co.uk sells all your favourite ranges from Olay, including Regenerist and Total Effects.

›Discover Olay at Amazon.co.uk

  

Train Hard...Play Hard

Nike, Gola, Converse, and more
Gear up with up to 60% off athletic and outdoor shoes.

›Shop now

  

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

›Learn more about Gift Certificates

  
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.
Continue Shopping: Top Sellers
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
4.5 out of 5 stars (72)£3.86
 Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga)
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga) by Stephenie Meyer
4.1 out of 5 stars (461)£6.49
 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
4.1 out of 5 stars (162)£3.99
 The Host
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
4.2 out of 5 stars (80)£3.86

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates