‘Most people can deal with one weakness – but they mightn’t be able to deal with two weaknesses of a different kind.’Ĭharles asks his father if there is a ‘common denominator’ of murderers and he replies, I’d always taken a certain amount of interest in my father’s police work, but nothing had prepared me for the moment when I should come to take a direct and personal interest in it.Ĭrooked House is a clever story with a very surprising and unsettling end! Agatha Christie displays some psychological leanings in this book – the influence of hereditary being one: And so Charles is introduced to the family and ends up doing some detecting on the side. The Leonides case, being under his jurisdiction, he suggests that Charles get information from the ‘inside’ – with Sophia’s full knowledge, of course. If it ever can be.Ĭharles’ father is none other than Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. With the whole household under a cloud, she will not accept Charles’ offer of marriage until the situation is resolved. Sophia’s rich grandfather, Aristides, dies suddenly and his doctor suspects poison. There is no Poirot or Miss Marple, but there is Charles Hayward, a young man who comes back to England after five years war of service to ask Sophia Leonides, the woman he loves, to marry him.īut a problem arises. “I saved it up for years, thinking about it, working it out, saying to myself: ‘one day, when I’ve plenty of time, and want to really enjoy myself- I’ll begin it!’ Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes had a hand in the screenplay, but there's none of the sparkling intrigue he brought to his own stately home murder mystery Gosford Park, while Gilles Paquet-Brenner's pedestrian direction gives the whole affair the feel of a hungover am-dram production.Crooked House is one of Agatha Christie’s special favourites – she said that writing it was pure pleasure and she considered this book one of her best. The author rated Crooked House as one of her personal favourite works, but even she might struggle to solve the puzzle of how this version went so awry, its lumbering pace constantly hampered by reams of stilted exposition delivered lazily by an ensemble cast having a collective off-day. Among the suspects are the victim's eccentric sister-in-law (Glenn Close), his spoilt young widow (Christina Hendricks) and his permanently sozzled daughter-in-law (Gillian Anderson).

Max Irons stars as the military spy-turned-private detective (and fiancé of the old man's granddaughter) who is tasked with exposing the killer.

Three generations of a well-to-do family gather at a country house after the death of its patriarch in this misfiring adaptation of a postwar Agatha Christie novel.

Agatha christie charles hayward