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

The title of this book is a reference to the nursery rhyme above. It has been almost 10 years since I read this book first. I read it again last night and I still fail to see how any amount of imagination can take the above nursery rhyme and turn it into the murder mystery master piece that Crooked House is. Agatha Christie herself stated in her autobiography that Crooked House was one of her favourite pieces of work, and in the forward to the novel Christie commented on how much she enjoyed writing it.

The man referred to in the rhyme as the crooked man here is Aristide Leonides, a Greek immigrant who managed to marry an English woman, establish a large family and a very successful catering business in England. The reason for Aristide being crooked is the source of his wealth. Though he is dependent on his intelligence and sharp wit, his success seems to also come from his ruthless nature and lack of moral scruples.

Aristide Leonides does not break the law, but he is very good at bending it. As the head of his large family, this crooked man keeps adding structures and extensions to his house in Swinly Dean, so that it becomes deformed, a “Crooked House”.

At the beginning of the novel, we meet with the first-person narrator, Charles Hayward, who is in love with a young woman he has met in Egypt. Her name is Sophia Leonides and she works at the Foreign Office. He is about to be relocated to the East, and he takes leave of Sophia solemnly, telling her that when he returns to England he will ask her to marry him. Two years later Charles returns, just as news of the death of Sophia’s grandfather Aristide Leonides is announced in the paper. He died from an injection of eserine when someone replaced his bottle of insulin with eserine from his own eye drops. The situation suggests that the murderer is someone within the family, and the relatives all suspect that the killer was Aristide’s very young widow, Brenda, who was more than 50 years his junior. It was she who administered the fatal injection, though she could have been unaware of the switch. When questioned, family members all show a dislike of Brenda, and some even claim that she is having an affair with Laurence Brown, the young private tutor to Sophia's younger brother and sister who lives in the house.

Sophia refuses to consider Charles’s proposal of marriage until the mystery of Aristide’s death is solved. She has a feeling that Brenda is not a killer, and this impression makes her nervous as it implies that the killer is someone else in her family. She wants to get to the bottom of this before committing herself to a marriage. And when Charles tells her that his father, Sir Arthur Hayward, is to be in charge of the police investigation and he himself has been invited to assist, Sophia welcomes his presence as a semi-official investigator.

When the investigation begins, some rather alarming secrets are revealed. Apparently Roger, the eldest son of Aristide, who has been given charge of the family catering business, has been losing money for years and will soon be bankrupt. The servants overheard a rather heated conversation between father and son on the day of Aristide’s death. Roger’s wife Clemency wants them to be free of the business, as she knows that Roger is unhappy and totally unsuited to business. They have already packed their bags to go away.

Philip, the younger son and Sophia’s father, is another strange personality. He is a professional historian, and spends all his time among old books. In temperament, he is a complete opposite to his wife, Magda, an actress. While Magda seems to see her life as scene after scene of melodramatic play-acting, Philip is totally repressed and emotionless. The police, however, suspect that an intense jealousy is hidden under his seemingly cool appearance.

Laurence Brown is the pale young tutor of Magda’s two younger children, Josephine and Eustace. Although a talented teacher, the Leonides family seem to take advantage of him and he is very unhappy. Only Brenda is kind to him, which may explain why there is talk about the two having an affair. Eustace is sixteen and resents having to have lessons with his young sister, Josephine, who is a rather unattractive child and a great fan of detective fiction.

Josephine is very active talking with Charles, she is full of comments about how incompetent the police are, and how much more she knows than the police. She seems to know so much about the murder that Charles begins to fear for her life. Josephine Leonides appears to be the key to solving the crime.

Miss Haviland, Aristide’s younger sister, is also very concerned about Josephine’s daring and boastful behaviour. This old lady possesses the same intelligence and toughness as Aristide, and sees straight through the younger members of the family. She takes a liking to young Charles, and is also careful to keep an eye on Josephine, who continues to brag about her discoveries and predict further murders. Then an accident befalls Josephine. She is hit on the head by a heavy object set on a pair of swinging doors, and dirt is found on a chair nearby which suggests that someone put the object on the doors deliberately. At the same time, her room is ransacked. Charles thinks that the murderer must have been looking for the little black book in which she recorded all her ideas.

Crooked House is a crooked book that takes you into the life of crooked family living in the literally and metaphorically crooked family. It is one of Christie's non-series mysteries with a one time appearance only hero. I have read enough books by the same author to know the amount of thought and effort that Agatha Christie put in this specific title. The events in unfold in a very paced manner allowing the reader to feel the serene intensity of the plot. The book is very complete making one believe the lie of the Leonides family's existence, and allowing the reader to live every exciting moment throughout.

What I found to be the absolutely most excellent aspect of this book is the characterization, as the characters of Crooked House all have a third dimension to them making them very real and very memorable indeed. They all have vividly painted personalities and are very interesting. The key to solving the crime lies in their mentalities and psychology which makes even harder to realize who the murderer is as nearly everyone is capable of committing the crimes. The plot is also very brilliant. Christie takes her ingenious plot and turns into a compelling human tragedy with an intuitively satisfying solution albeit a very startling ending.

My review of this novel will not add to its glory, since Crooked House has long been considered one of Christie's absolute best and her personal favourite along with Ordeal by Innocence.

It is worth mentioning that back when the novel was first published, the publisher did not approve of the identity of the murderer in Crooked House and asked Christie to change it. It took a lot of resistance on Christie's part to reject this request and keep the original ending. The result is quite frightening and morally shocking. In the light of modern world events, this novel is really a demonstration of the Queen of Crime's power as the revelation of the truth at the end of Crooked House - written almost 55 years ago - still has the capacity to shock readers today.


My other reviews of Agatha Christie novels:

Cat Among the Pigeons

Sleeping Murder

Easy to Kill

Recommended: Yes