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Family Matters

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

October 27, 2018 by Jake Leave a Comment

As much as I loved the ending, I came away thinking this should have been much better than it was.

Aside from a few standalone works, the most famous being And Then There Were None (still my favorite of hers), Agatha Christie is mostly known for her two famous detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. I imagine she probably got bored of writing for them (I almost certainly know this was true of Poirot) so on this one, she decided to venture out on her own.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This one could have really used Poirot.

The central character is what made this book difficult for me. In love with one of the family members whose patriarch/patron has just been died under suspicious circumstances, he is enlisted by his father, a run-of-the-mill detective, to try and help figure out what happened. This would be fine if Agatha Christie’s goal were to use his relationship to the woman and her family to build suspense. But she can’t seem to decide if she wants to do that, or to use him as an ancillary detective for the police. The result is he winds up being an excuse for long-winded exposition. He’s less a fully realized character, a problem for someone whose perspective provides the narrative, and more an excuse for things to happen around him.

Which sucks because the ideas behind this book are good ones. The family definitely has issues; the house provides a looming menace to the proceedings. The pieces are there. And would have been perfectly placed if Poirot or Miss Marple or even an anonymous third party detective was involved, rather than the character provided.

Reading this felt like watching a play unfold behind a glass barrier where you can barely hear what’s going on. It was good and is probably graded unfairly. A 3-star Agatha Christie is better than most 4-star books. But putting it on a curve, this is less than her best work.

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Filed Under: Mystery Tagged With: agatha christie, Crooked House, mystery, standalone

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10/27/2018 Jake's CBR10 Review No:39 |
Rating:
| Tags: agatha christie, Crooked House, mystery, standalone | Category: Mystery | 0 Comments

Jake

I love reading!

CBR11 participantCBR11 LevelsCBR10 participant

Recent Reviews:

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Recent Comments

  • Classic on Not as Good as ChristieYup the cover is really nice. It seems a lot of reviewers weren't into this one.
  • Classic on See Into the Beast👍🏽
  • Scootsa1000 on “I wish his darkness lived outside of him, because you have to know it’s there to see it. Like all real monsters, he hides in plain sight.”I suggest the following plan of attack: have a few feel-good books ready for when you finish Sadie. I jumped right into the new Christina...
  • faintingviolet on “I wish his darkness lived outside of him, because you have to know it’s there to see it. Like all real monsters, he hides in plain sight.”My brother bought this for me for Christmas and I'm super excited it keeps getting positive reviews. I tried to read the articles about the...
  • Tracy on See Into the BeastJust popped by to say I also loved Vincent :-)
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