From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Crooked House

Agatha Christie

Start date: November 1, 2017

Finish date: November 30, 2017

Discussion: Group reads

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Group reads

* Nominations for January 2026 group read
By Judy · 7 posts · 16 views

last updated 2 hours, 51 min ago

* Nov 25: Post After Post-Mortem (Robert Macdonald #11) by E C R Lorac (1936)
By Susan · 11 posts · 14 views

last updated 35 minutes ago

What Members Thought

Oct 19, 2017 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Published in 1949 this is a stand-alone Agatha Christie novel which was, apparently, one of her personal favourites. Our narrator, Charles Hayward, fell in love with Sophia Leonides during the war and intends to marry her if he returns safely to England. However, his plans are thwarted when Sophia’s grandfather, Aristide Leonides, is poisoned and the family come under suspicion – with Sophia stating she will not marry him until the crime is solved.

Sophia and her family would prefer the murderer ...more

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Apr 23, 2019 Christine PNW rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is at least the third time I've read this mystery, and this time around I was able to, really, see all of the clues, hints and traps for the unwary that Christie laid for the reader. She was absolutely messing with us through most of the book.

"I was to wonder afterwards that I could've been so blind. The truth had stuck out so clearly all along..."

One of her best, with a rather gobsmacking reveal. ...more

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Mar 16, 2016 Kavita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: uk, mystery

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

Agatha Christie's penchant for weaving murder mysteries out of nursery rhymes does not let her down this time either. (I do have a picture in my mind of a young Christie thinking up all this delightfully macabre stuff while the other kids were singing innocently). The crooked man here i ...more

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Oct 30, 2017 ShanDizzy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I truly appreciate Dame Agatha's descriptions which put you in THAT scene with all of the appropriate emotions/feelings - "...We drove up a long curving drive flanked with rhododendrons and came out on a gravelled sweep in front of the house. It was incredible! I wondered why it had been called Three Gables. Eleven gables would have been more apposite! The curious thing was that it had strange air of being distorted - and I thought I knew why. It was the type, really of a cottage, it was a cotta I truly appreciate Dame Agatha's descriptions which put you in THAT scene with all of the appropriate emotions/feelings - "...We drove up a long curving drive flanked with rhododendrons and came out on a gravelled sweep in front of the house. It was incredible! I wondered why it had been called Three Gables. Eleven gables would have been more apposite! The curious thing was that it had strange air of being distorted - and I thought I knew why. It was the type, really of a cottage, it was a cottage swollen out of all proportion. It was like looking at a country cottage through a gigantic magnifying glass. The slant-wise beams, the half-timbering, the gables - it was a little crooked house that had grown like a mushroom in the night! Yet I got the idea. It was a Greek restaurateur's idea of something English. It was meant to be an Englisman's home - built the size of a castle!"

"...It was opened with startling suddenness by a man who must have been standing just inside. He was a clumsy giant of a man, with powerful shoulders, dark rumpled hair, and an exceedingly ugly but at the same time rather a pleasant face...He collided with a screen and said "I beg your pardon" to it in a flustered manner and went out of the room. It was rather like the exit of a bumblebee...""

"Mrs. Roger Leonides was standing up by the window. I was intrigued at once by her personality and by the atmosphere of the room in which she stood. The walls were painted white - really white, not an ivory or pale cream which is what one usually means when one says "white" in house decoration. They had no pictures on them...only mere utilitarian necessities...there were no ornaments. There was light and space and air....Clemency Leonides...could never be anyone but herself. She was a woman of very sharp and definite personality."

Just finished reading the last chapter of this story and my chin is still on the floor! Wow! What an ending! It was intensely thrilling and acutely horrifying....quite a study in human nature too. Of course, Agatha Christie's stories always are, in my humble opinion. ...more

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Dec 10, 2018 Paperbackreader rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: all-collections, british, audiobook, crime, read-but-unowned, classic, mystery, detective

I enjoyed this unique tale of good and evil. I bow down to Chrsitie's judgment and agree that this and Ordeal by Innocence are two of her best. I wish I could like it more but something kept me from doing so. I loved the female protagonist, Sophia, who is portrayed as a capable person. Maybe my tepid reaction to the overall narrative stems from my feelings towards the bland hero of the book, who is also its narrator. The people inhabiting the eponymous crooked house are far more interesting than ...more

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