Book Review : Crooked House by Agatha Christie

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -
Agatha Christie is one of those authors that needs no introduction. She is the queen of thrillers and over the years she had spanned out numerous thrillers with Hercule Poirot being one of her most famous characters. Recently, I had chanced upon one of her books 'The Crooked House' which is a non-Poirot mystery and once again Christie has delivered a page turner.

Blurb (From Goodreads):

In the sprawling, half-timbered mansion in the affluent suburb of Swinly Dean, Aristide Leonides lies dead from barbiturate poisoning. An accident? Not likely. In fact, suspicion has already fallen on his luscious widow, a cunning beauty fifty years his junior, set to inherit a sizeable fortune, and rumored to be carrying on with a strapping young tutor comfortably ensconced in the family estate. But criminologist Charles Hayward is casting his own doubts on the innocence of the entire Leonides brood. He knows them intimately. And he's certain that in a crooked house such as Three Gables, no one's on the level.

My Take on the Book:

It was only while writing this review that I had realised there has already been a movie based on this book that came out last year. Coming back to the good, there is no doubt that Christie has churned out another page turner and the reader gets hooked to the story quite easily. The title of the book which is based on another nursery rhyme which is quite a recurrent theme in her novels.

What does not work for this book is the abrupt climax. The climax is not quite well detailed and the mystery is solved pretty abruptly. Although Christie did make sure that the readers see each and every character with a suspicious eye, the killer as always becomes quite a surprise for most of us who are so used to Christie's style of writing. 

In the end, I would say, pick this up if you are looking for a light thriller but do not expect as high as compared to other books of Christie. She is still one of the best thriller writers around even after her death.

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟 1/2 out of 5

Book in Three Words: Intriguing. Thrilling. Page-Turner.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review : From Quetta to Delhi - A Partition Story by Reema Nanda

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -
Image
Never Judge a book by its cover nor by the name it possesses. The same case happened with me when I read the title of the name 'From Quetta to Delhi'. To be honest, I didn't take any pains to read the blurb because a story on partition is something I always wanted to read an action packed story on Partition. Sadly, the book wasn't what I had expected. So, what was the book about? What did made me read the book? Read further to know about it. Blurb: The invisible cost of the Partition of the Punjab in 1947 - besides the violence, loss of life and property - was that it destroyed the psychic equilibrium of the displaced population. This is the story of one such woman, Shakunt, who rebuilt her life but could never get over the trauma of losing her homes in Quetta and Jhang - not just the loss of a physical space but of the language, culture and ethos that it had embodied. A syncretic culture of multilingualism - Urdu, Persian and Punjabi - and of multiple identities o...
Read more

Travel : Trip of a Lifetime - II

By -
Image
The cruise.... Too excited to go on a cruise, we three musketeers reached the spot 4 hours before the departure time. Unfortunately, even the cruise was late that  night. Whatever might be the case, it was worth the wait. It was the first time in our life, we had dined, partied and slept (of course individually) on a ship. 24 hours later, we were heading towards the train station to our very next destination, “The Eternal City”, Rome. Roaming in Rome... Adventures started as soon as we reach Rome. We forgot to validate our ticket and were dead scared that we might get caught by the officials. Getting down at the railway station, we helped an old lady who was struggling to come out of the train. It took us 2 hours to reach our hotel even though we were roaming on the same street and finally arriving at a disastrous room. I regret not checking the reviews for this one. Of all the places, Rome turned out to be the cheapest and our little stint at Rome and Vatican took ...
Read more

Thoughts : Love Thy Neighbour

By -
Image
Ahhhh... Love Thy Neighbor .. Years back when I was doing my schooling, an extract of the classic novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was taught to us in our English Literature class. The extract was aptly titled "Love thy Neighbor  as it portrayed the way how Uncle Tom, the central character, lived his life spreading love everywhere. So, why am I talking about this subject right now? I believe that today technology has crippled us so much that we have forgotten what it means to be with real people than being virtual. In fact, the same even applies to me as I was unaware of my juniors living in the adjacent room of mine. A few weeks back, when I was returning back via Bangalore airport, I took some time to notice people around me. People were busy with themselves either working on their laptops or talking on phone, but there was this one small incident that caught my eye. A family of 3, father, mother and their son who must be of around 6 or 7, dining together. I...
Read more