HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Crooked house by Agatha Christie
Loading...

Crooked house (original 1949; edition 1971)

by Agatha Christie, Tom Adams (Illustrator)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
3,700793,382 (3.77)174
Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. HTML:

"Writing Crooked House was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best." â??Agatha Christie

Described by the queen of mystery herself as one of her favorites of her published work, Crooked House is a classic Agatha Christie thriller revolving around a devastating family mystery.

The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.

Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancĂ© of the late millionaire's granddaughter.… (more)

Member:sonia.chovanec
Title:Crooked house
Authors:Agatha Christie
Other authors:Tom Adams (Illustrator)
Info:Fontana (1971), Edition: n.i., Paperback, 160 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:Christie

Work Information

Crooked House by Agatha Christie (1949)

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 174 mentions

English (72)  Spanish (3)  Danish (1)  Dutch (1)  Portuguese (Portugal) (1)  All languages (78)
Showing 1-5 of 72 (next | show all)
a typical Christie mystery. nothing particularly special or worth making a note of, just an entertaining mystery which you can solve yourself and with some interesting twists ( )
  tombomp | Oct 31, 2023 |
Readable, but definitely not Agatha Christie's best work. ( )
  thesusanbrown | Jun 8, 2023 |
A top-notch detective story by an author who is very good at detective stories! The titular Crooked House is an oddly-designed house holding the multi-generational family of Aristide Leonides, an immigrant to England from Greece who built his restaurant into a web of businesses that were never illegal, but definitely a bit crooked. His two grown sons and their families, as well as the sister of his deceased wife live in the house with him, along with his much younger second wife and a handsome tutor for his son Philip's younger children. Before the action of the novel, Aristide has died after the insulin his wife injected into him was replaced with eserine (from his eye drops).

Our narrator, Charles, enters the scene as the fiancée of Sophia, Philip's oldest child, who he met overseas during the war. Sophia refuses to marry him until the question of who killed her grandfather is settled, since any hint of impropriety could hurt his prospects. Lucky for Charles, his dad is a big wig at Scotland Yard, and he gets sent to the Leonides home with our old friend Chief Inspector Taverner to see what he can learn about the family. Everyone suspects Brenda, the young wife, who had been having an affair with the handsome tutor, but, oddly, everyone in the family had their own reasons why they may want their beloved patriarch to be killed, and they all kind of suspect each other too.

Christie leads us through a mountain of twists and turns and red herrings, wrapping things up with an unsuspected and very satisfyingly dark ending that proves that anyone in this crooked family really could be capable of murder. This was Christie's 49th book, published in 1949, and is frequently put in her top ten by critics and fans. I have to say that I am in agreement there. ( )
  kristykay22 | May 21, 2023 |
Charles Hayward investigates the murder of his fiancee's grandfather as she refuses to marry him while she is still a possible suspect.

A stand-alone novel where my little grey cells failed me completely. ( )
  Robertgreaves | Mar 13, 2023 |
I guess I never added this book when I read it years ago.
With some mystery novels, eventually you forget whodunnit. You can reread and it'll be fresh because it wasn't that memorable the first time around.
This is not that book.
You'll remember. ( )
  Alishadt | Feb 25, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 72 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review

» Add other authors (17 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Christie, Agathaprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Adams, Tomsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ballot, CarmenTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Bandini, GiovanniÜbersetzersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dausset, SylvieIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
de Cal, StellaIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Duurloo, EllenTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Eckardt, HansNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
FlipIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Fraser, HughNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Horovitch, DavidNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Houbie, Michel LeTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jaskari, JuhaniTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Looman, HeikiIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
M. Cordelia E. LeighTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Niinepuu-Kiik, PiretIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Piirimaa, MattiTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Polak, AnnaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Rojkowska, AnnaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Seeberg, Axel S.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Segurado, Maria GeorginaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Wiese, Ursula vonsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Zazo, Anna LuisaContributorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
I first came to know Sophia Leonides in Egypt towards the end of the war.
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Information from the German Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. HTML:

"Writing Crooked House was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best." â??Agatha Christie

Described by the queen of mystery herself as one of her favorites of her published work, Crooked House is a classic Agatha Christie thriller revolving around a devastating family mystery.

The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.

Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of the late millionaire's granddaughter.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary
A patriarch dead
Blame falls on the outsider
Clear motive – case closed?
(passion4reading)

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.77)
0.5
1 5
1.5 1
2 36
2.5 6
3 187
3.5 45
4 281
4.5 23
5 129

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 204,502,483 books! | Top bar: Always visible