Crooked House

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El final. Fue quizá el gran pero para mí. El caso queda cerrado, por supuesto, pero no me gustó el destino que tuvo el asesino, más que nada porque aunque los detectives no sabían todavía su identidad, el asunto de la protección de Josefina fue muy conveniente (Si supieras que está en peligro y que uno de los familiares es el asesino, nunca dejarías que se fuera con uno de ellos). Y claro, pasa lo que pasa. Lo de los suicidios/asesinatos en los finales de Christie... no termina de convencerme. Por qué no se podía salir el malo con la suya, si tan listo era? y claro... tampoco esta muy bien lo de internarlo de por vida, es más fácil el despachárselo... pues no sé... Robert Barnard: "'Pure pleasure' was how the author described the writing of this, which was long planned, and remained one of her favourites. As the title implies, this is a family murder – and a very odd family indeed. The solution, one of the classic ones, was anticipated (but much less effectively) in Margery Allingham's 'prentice work The White Cottage Mystery." [5]

Charles's inquiries meet with hostility from most of the family. Josephine hints that she has found clues she does not disclose, to Charles's irritation. Events take a new, horrific turn when the ladder to Josephine's treehouse is sabotaged and she falls, having to be hospitalised. Charles suspects that this was due to Josephine's habit of spying on the other family members. 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. The title refers to a nursery rhyme (" There Was a Crooked Man"), a common theme of the author. Narrator Charles's fiancée Sophia says it refers not to dishonesty, but rather "we hadn't been able to grow up independent... twisted and twining", meaning unhealthily interdependent on the intensely strong personality of the family patriarch, Aristide Leonides. A wedding invitation arrived. Paul was invited to the wedding of his closest childhood friend; of course he wanted to go, of course he wanted Alison to go with him. Her problem was that the wedding would be in the same small town where Esme had been living with her family when that family was destroyed. The crooked house is a creepy place set in a very tight knit rural location called Saltleigh where the locals mistrust incomers and seem to close ranks together.

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. de Chaire, Hugo (26 November 2016). "Composer on Feature Film 'Crooked House' ". Hugo de Chaire. Archived from the original on 27 November 2016 . Retrieved 26 November 2016.

I felt for her and I feared for her, I really did. And that says much about the skill with which Christobel Kent drew her character, her situation and her story.After those developments, Taverner arrives in person to take charge of the case; he feels Charles' romantic history with Sophia does not make him objective enough to solve it. The discovery of love letters between Brenda and Laurence gives Taverner enough evidence to arrest them for Aristide's murder and the attempt on Josephine. Shortly after the end of World War II the house was condemned as not safe and closed to the public. Fortunately the building was stabilised and restored by Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries. The foundations were pinned and three large buttresses built to shore up the sinking walls. It apparently hasn't moved in years and is now quite safe again.

But this is not a romantic drama , it is a mystery and it delivers satisfactorily on the mystery end. South Staffordshire Council said the demolition of The Crooked House in Dudley was "not agreed or deemed necessary".Alison didn’t want to explain why she didn’t want to go, she didn’t want Paul to go without her and have things said, and so she decided that she had to be brave. She told herself that she could cope, that the past would have been forgotten, that nobody would recognise her. Staffordshire Police confirmed they were treating the fire as arson, and on Thursday, 24 August, two men were arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life. Despite Christie’s love for the book, Crooked House isn’t nearly as well known as many of her works, such as Murder on the Orient Express. The reason for this relative obscurity may well be that Crooked House does not feature either of Christie’s two famous detectives, Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple. Instead, the narrator is Charles Hayward a diplomat who spent the war overseas and has just rekindled his romance with Sophia, the granddaughter of the dead businessman. Because Hayward’s father is a police officer, he is asked to stay at the house for a while and talk to the various witnesses in hopes of finding a clue.