The little grey cells and the elderly spinster are not noticeably missed. However, that doesn’t mean this book isn’t any good, because it is.

Crooked House seemed familiar but I’d not seen the latest adaptation and was intrigued to read it.Ĭrooked House is one of Christie’s standalone novels and doesn’t feature either Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple. My memory of course is made up of fragments and the lasting impressions of the many TV adaptations. I’d thought I’d read all of Agatha Christie’s novels, though many of them were read so long ago it’s almost as if I’ve never read them. Throw in a pots of money and a devious murder method and you have yourself the makings of a great mystery novel. So Charles, encouraged by his father, who happens to be the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, heads to Three Gables, the Crooked House, to find out the truth.Ī large country house, numerous family members and a young step-mother married to the elderly patriarch. When he returns from overseas, Sophia writes to him, telling Charles that her beloved grandfather Aristide, is dead, murdered, and Sophia can’t marry Charles until she knows who killed Aristide. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiance of the late millionare’s granddaughter…Ĭharles Hayward meets Sophia Leonides in Cairo and falls in love. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, fifty years his junior.

That was until the head of the household, Aristide, was murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.

The Leonides were one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. A wealthy Greek businessman is found dead at his London home…

Agatha christie leonides