What "improvements" have been made for the St. Martin's Minotaur edition? There are already major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There are further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. There are further additions still in the Signet, Bantam, Berkley, and Black Dog & Leventhal editions. For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed.

Crooked House is supposedly one of Christie's top two favorite books and I can see why. Filled with interesting characters, suspenseful twists and a myriad of suspects, Crooked House does not disappoint. On top of that, Hugh Fraser is the best at capturing each character and giving them life. Loved this one!

This Christie novel doesn't quite deliver the goods. It's the usual savoir faire: a crumbling family's patriarch is murdered, and his significantly-younger trophy wife is thought to be his killer. The dysfunctional Leonides family thinks the victim's wife might be carrying-on an affair with the live-in tutor. There's plenty of police talk and not nearly enough character development. In fact, one wishes the characters weren't so "Christie," i.e., familar, predictable, etc. Despite a mildly intriguing denouement (which, also, was somewhat predictable), Crooked House lacks fresh characters and gripping dialogue, which makes it a tedious read.

By all means, this is one of my favorite Agatha Christie novels. The denoument is so gripping I couldn't put the book down, even after I finished reading it. I just immediately started reviewing the clues again. It was all there in the open to see. Pure genius! Most of the other reviewers have summarized the plot, so I won't rehash it. Excellent, quick read.

CROOKED HOUSE was written in 1949. The detective is not Hercule Poirot nor Mrs. Marple but Charles Hayward, the son of an eminent Scotland Yard superintendent, who's in love with Sofia Leonides whose grandfather has just been poisoned. The book is a good example of the "all in the family" murder genre as Aristide Leonides was murdered in the family home and the prime suspects are his own wife, his sister-in-law, his sons, their wives and his grandchildren.

As often in the Agatha Christie novels of that period, there aren't many descriptions of London or even of the "crooked" Leonides house in the book. CROOKED HOUSE is pure Christie style : a lot of dialogs and psychological considerations carried out per se by Charles Hayward. In addition to the final twist which seems to have been very innovative and provocative in 1949, American radios refusing to broadcast the radio adaptation of the novel, I liked very much, in a detective story, the fact that nor the detective, nor the police inspectors could find the identity of the murderer(s).

A book for the week-end.