Crooked House
Dust-jacket illustration of the UK first edition.
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Dodd, Mead and Company |
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Publication date
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March 1949 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 211 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | The Rose and the Yew Tree |
| Followed by | A Murder Is Announced |
Crooked House is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in March 1949 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 23 May of the same year.
The action takes place in and near London in the autumn of 1947. Christie said this and Ordeal by Innocence were her favourites. It is one of only five Christie novels not to have received a screen adaptation (although one is planned) - the others being Death Comes as the End, Destination Unknown, Passenger to Frankfurt, and Postern of Fate.
The title refers to a nursery rhyme ("There Was a Crooked Man"), a common theme of the author. Narrator Charles' fiancée Sophia says it refers not to dishonesty, but rather "we hadn't been able to grow up independent. . .twisted and twining," meaning unhealthily interdependent on the intensely strong personality of the family patriarch, Aristide.
Three generations of the Leonides family live together under wealthy patriarch Aristide. His first wife died; her sister Edith has cared for the household since then. His second wife is the indolent Brenda, decades his junior, suspected of having a clandestine love affair with the grandchildren's tutor. After Aristide is poisoned by his own eye medicine (eserine), his granddaughter Sophia tells narrator and fiancé Charles Hayward that they cannot marry until the killer is apprehended. Charles' father, "The Old Man", is the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, so Charles investigates from the inside along with assigned detective, Chief Inspector Taverner.
Towards the end of the Second World War, Charles Hayward is in Cairo and falls in love with Sophia Leonides, a smart, successful Englishwoman who works for the Foreign Office. They put off getting engaged until the end of the war when they will be reunited in England.
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