Crooked House

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She was wary when Paul, a successful older man, took an interest in her, but he didn’t talk about his past and he didn’t ask about hers. A relationship – of sorts – developed. My admiration for the puzzle in Crooked House is tempered a bit by the book’s shortcomings as a novel. Charles is the epitome of the dull narrator—no exercising the little gray cells here—and his romance with Sophia, which other writers might take advantage to ratchet up the suspense is curiously tepid. The only function Charles serves is to provide the narration and give the suspects a shoulder to cry upon. And, although the characters are a bit quirky, readers never lose sight of the fact that Crooked House is essentially a book-length puzzle with characters that are given only as much development as needed to support the storyline. La historia. Sofía, la novia de Carlos, le dice que no podrán casarse hasta que se aclare la muerte de su abuelo, que ha sido asesinado por alguien de su propia familia. Así que le pide que se ponga a investigarlo ya que el suyo es un punto de vista externo. Y pues él, como quiere casarse, se pone a hacer de detective, pero... el esfuerzo valdrá la pena al final? Si sois lectores asiduos de Christie ya sabréis la respuesta... mujajajajaja Charles' suspicions even extend to Sophia after a new, properly signed will is discovered, leaving the estate to her. Eustace even suggests that Sophia hired Charles to investigate the murder due to their personal history, knowing he would never accuse her due to their romantic past. Charles interviews the various members of the family, finding motives for each of them. All get bequests from Aristide's estate, but resented the way he bullied and manipulated them. Lady Edith de Haviland was the sister of Aristide's late first wife; she moved in to care for her motherless nephews. She despised her brother-in-law. Edith stalks around the grounds, blasting moles in the lawn with a shotgun.

Lady Edith de Haviland was the sister of Aristide's late first wife; she moved in to care for her motherless nephews. She despised her brother-in-law as a parvenu and for his callousness towards his grandchildren. Edith stalks around the grounds, blasting moles in the lawn with a shotgun. The sense of place is magnificently captured – the small community closing ranks around its own, the estuary at times both creepy and beautiful – and of course at the heart of it the little “Crooked House” of the title – the place where Esme morphed into Alison and this story has its soul. Brilliantly achieved. Eden, Richard (20 March 2011). " 'Downton Abbey' creator Julian Fellowes to make Agatha Christie fashionable again". The Daily Telegraph. London.

All the family members had motive and opportunity, none has an alibi; and each of them knew that Aristide's eye medicine was poisonous as he had told all the family after being asked by Josephine. According to the will, they all stand to gain a healthy bequest from the old man's estate. The servants do not get bequests but would lose their (increasing) annual wages or bonuses, so are not suspects. Aside from this, the family members have little in common. Edith de Haviland, Aristide's unmarried sister-in-law, is a brusque woman in her 70s who came to stay with him after his first wife's death to supervise his children's upbringing. Roger, the eldest son and Aristide's favourite, is a failure as a businessman. He has steered the catering business bestowed to him by his father to the brink of bankruptcy and he longs to live a simple life somewhere far away. Roger's wife Clemency, a scientist with austere and unsentimental tastes, has never been able to enjoy the wealth offered by her husband's family. Roger's younger brother, Philip, has suffered under his father's preference for Roger, and retreated into a distant world of books and bygone historical epochs, spending all his waking hours in the library. Philip's wife Magda is an only moderately successful actress to whom everything, even a family murder, is a stage show in which she wants to play a leading part. Sixteen-year-old Eustace has polio. He is handsome and intelligent, yet embittered by his disability. His twelve-year-old sister Josephine, on the other hand, is ugly, precociously intelligent, and obsessed with detective stories. She spies continually on the rest of the household, letting everyone know that she is writing down her observations in a secret notebook. If you decide that adulthood is overrated and you need to start hanging around with people your own age – in the swingin’ 60s! – choose http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

His second wife is the indolent Brenda, decades his junior, suspected of having a clandestine love affair with Laurence, the grandchildren's tutor. En fin, 4,5 estrellas sobre 5 porque disfrute mucho con la lectura y con el personajazo que es Josefina mujajajajajaja Then one night a terrible thing happened in the crooked house, a nightmare of violence out of which Alison emerged the only witness and sole survivor and from which she has been running ever since."

CHAPTER I

Reminiscent of Agatha Christie, [ Murder in the Crooked House] is a strange brew—one with a taste that certain adventurous readers may be well pleased to savor.” — The Wall Street Journal

Maybe there was somebody in the town who had been involved in what had happened, somebody who knew what had happened, somebody who was keeping secrets. No Marple. No Tuppence. No Poirot. Mon Dieu! Yet this short Christie mystery remains one of my favorites, likely due to the interesting characterization and well-crafted plot. It gradually builds tension, with a rather unanticipated but satisfying ending. Aristide's elder son, Philip, hated his father for passing him over as successor to the family business, and for refusing to fund production of a screenplay Philip wrote for his wife, Magda, a fading theater actress. There is a peculiar set of characters, who all seem to have a reason for the victim to be dead but as soon as you think you have spotted the culprit they give you a reason to think they are innocent. Charles' suspicions even extend to Sophia after another, properly signed, will is discovered, leaving the estate to her. Aristide's son Eustace however suggests that Sophia hired Charles to investigate the murder due to their personal history, knowing he would never accuse her due to their romantic past.

Success!

The youngest of three children of the Miller family. The Millers had two other children: Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, who was eleven years Agatha's senior, and Louis Montant Miller (1880–1929), called Monty, ten years older than Agatha. Aristide Leonides, the man who was murdered; born in Smyrna, Turkey, he arrived in London in 1884 when he was 24