Crooked House by Agatha Christie - 7/20 Books of Summer #ReadChristie2025

In this standalone mystery, which she described as one of her favorites, Christie used a nursery rhyme as inspiration:

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.*

During WWII, diplomat Charles Hayward was stationed in Egypt and slowly falls in love with Sophia Leonides, who has a “fairly high administrative post in one of the Foreign Office departments there” (this makes her one of the most accomplished Christie heroines I can think of).  He tells her he will come back to England to propose when his (mysterious) work and the war are over and she says she’ll be waiting “In a little crooked house,” just outside London, where she usually lives with her self-made, rich Greek grandfather and extended family.

Two years later, Charles returns to England and is eagerly awaiting their reunion when he sees news in The Times that Sophia’s grandfather has died abruptly. When Sophia joins him, she reveals that the police think it was murder and she is afraid a family member is involved. Conveniently, Charles’ father is the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard and, although not thrilled to hear his son’s almost-fiancée is caught up in a murder investigation (although he observes approvingly that “the girl will have money”), suggests Charles go to the extravagant home built by Aristide Leonides and see what he can find out.

No one seems to find it odd that Charles pushes his way in to a house of mourning – and maybe that is because the family members are all suspects in this death so are preoccupied. Most seem to hope the guilty party is Brenda, Aristide’s much younger second wife, an outsider none of them would miss. There is no Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot to swoop in to solve the mystery. Chief Inspector Taverner is ostensibly investigating the case but Charles does a better job at gathering gossip, mostly from Sophia’s younger sister, who fancies herself as a detective. Charles does have a personal stake in identifying the killer because Sophia won’t marry him if there is a cloud over her name (Aristide was physically crooked but - barely - stayed on the right side of the law, according to Charles' father).

Crooked House may have been Dame Agatha’s favorite but I don’t think it is one of her best. Charles is not very perceptive, thus is an unimpressive sleuth, and I missed the occasional touches of humor that enliven some of Christie’s books. She does fill up the house with a group of distinctive characters (actually, Sophia’s patient relationship with her overly-dramatic mother is amusing, so I take it back about no humor). And she kept me guessing as to the murderer! This is the seventh of my 20 Books of Summer and seventeenth book for the Cloak and Dagger Challenge. I also read it for Read Christie 2025.

Title: Crooked House
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication: William Morrow, paperback, originally published in 1949
Genre: Mystery
Source: Library

* This rhyme was not in my Mother Goose but presumably better known in Britain