Crooked House is my second book for the 1949 Club and another one for RIPXXI. Some of Agatha Christie’s books are better than others, and Crooked House is pretty darn good. In fact, Christie commented that it was one of her favorites. It’s one of the few of her stand-alone books that I think is just as good as the best Poirot and Marple mysteries.
As the war is wrapping up in Egypt, Charles Hayward realizes he loves his friend Sophia Leonides and tells her that when he returns to England, he will ask her to marry him. Two years later, he cables Sophia to meet him for dinner in London and later reads that her grandfather, Aristide Leonides, a very rich old man, has died. Sophia joins him at dinner anyway and tells him that she fears her grandfather was murdered. Since most of the suspects are family members, she won’t marry him unless the murder is solved. She asks him to help.
Charles’s father is the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, and he thinks Charles could be helpful since Aristides was indeed murdered, poisoned when someone substituted eye drops for his insulin. So, the A. C. suggests that Charles accompany Chief-Inspector Taverner to the estate. The near-ninety-year-old Aristides has remarried Brenda, a much younger woman, and it’s clear that the whole household wants the murderer to have been Brenda or Laurence, the tutor whom the family believes is her lover.
Aside from them, the household consists of Sophia’s icy father Philip and her theatrical mother Magda, her emotional uncle Roger and arctic aunt Clemency, her younger siblings Eustace, crippled by illness and bitterness, and young Josephine, who likes to spy on people and brag about what she knows. Finally, there is Edith de Haviland, the sister of Aristides’ first wife.
Although everyone knows how the estate was left, there are unpleasant surprises. First, the will that was read to all of them a year ago is missing. Then, someone knocks Josephine unconscious. Finally, a totally different will is sent to his lawyer by one of Aristides’ old friends.
This one is twisty, and I had no idea who the evildoer was. Although Sophia seems like one of the least knowable characters, there’s a reason for that. This is a good one.
pretty darn good is right, I really enjoyed this one too! Loved ‘arctic aunt’ and ‘Eustace, crippled by illness and bitterness’, you’ve captured them so succinctly!
Thanks!