Reviews

La casa torcida by Agatha Christie

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m00dreads's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Agatha Christie said this was one of her personal favorites, and I can definitely see why. Of the four (a measly number, I know) AC books I’ve read, this one takes the silver. ( And Then There Were None still holds the gold)

I love love love it when an author isn't afraid to exploit reader bias—and there’s no better training ground for such a maneuver, I think, than a classic whodunnit. It’s the most effective form of misdirection because the culprit is our own presumptive nature. There was a *chef’s kiss* foreshadowing here that I almost wish I would’ve seen right through but alas, I’ve never been clever enough to trump a mystery. Let alone one from the world’s most seasoned veteran in the game. No shame, though!! I like being gobsmacked. There’s a simple joy to be found in being so easily pleased and impressionable sometimes.

Now on to the half-point deduction.

Crooked House was a good old-fashioned mystery in the sense that it forgoes the overtly psychological and internal drama in favor of theatricality and atmosphere. And it’s all by design; AC paperbacks are the kind you blitz through in one sitting when you’ve decided to turn in early on an uneventful Saturday evening and you want something fast-paced, entertaining, and non-committal. That’s not to say that Christie botched all character work—quite the opposite, as the members of her cast all have their trademark complexities—just that she botched the narrator’s.

I liked Charles Hayward the way one might like a pretty vase: easy on the eyes and goes well with any aesthetic, but at the end of the day just another empty vessel. Ironically enough, our dear narrator is the most weakly written character here. He’s a figure drawn with hazy lines, bereft of any distinctive feature. Essentially, his sole function was to be the pair of lenses through which readers could watch the plot unfold. Again, it makes sense given the purpose of the narrative. I myself probably wouldn’t have been so stingy with half stars, had my most recent point of reference not been Katherine Grey from my last AC book, The Mystery of the Blue Train . She was the kind of main character you rooted for and connected with, and so the difference was quite stark.

nurosanay's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

gmcuriousgeorge's review against another edition

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3.0

Random anecdote related to this book, while I was on like page 160:
First day of class (school year here begins in January) and I'm meeting my new homeroom teacher.
Teacher: So tell me a bit about yourselves, your names and something you like.
The class: *silence*
Me: I'll go, then.
Teacher: Okay, go on.
Me: I'm Cynthia and I love to read. I'm currently reading La Casa Torcida by Agatha Christie.
Teacher: Cool! Is it good?
Me: Yeah, pretty good.
Boy, was I not expecting a thing...

So, there's huge this family that lives in a "Crooked House," and the main character, Charles, wants to marry one of the family members, Sophia. But guess what? The "patriarch" and oldest member of the family, Aristide Leonides, is poisoned and killed unexpectedly. Charles's dad is a police officer, so he is asked to help solve the mystery.

I was fine with there being no Poirot in this book, it's something different from normal Christie books. The characters were fine, and I didn't find it hard to keep track of them and their personalities. This book was constantly in movement and, just as other Agatha Christie books contains a lot of dialogue containing clues and possible motives for the characters.

IT'S SPOILER TIME!!

As I've said, the book was good. It WAS, before the ending happened. The twist was good and Christie literally had to go for the most unexpected one, which also means having a twelve-year-old murderer. Which makes no sense. And it's disturbing. I know you're thinking: "It's a murder-mystery, it ought to be a little bit disturbing." And I agree, but revealing the murderer's identity is a serious business, and please don't make them a child. Just, no.

"Tía Edith" would have made more sense, also thanks to that almost-final scene of her randomly taking Josephine for a car ride and proceeding to crash the car. There's no way you can justify killing a child on purpose, s e r i o u s l y.

Well, that's that. If I'd written this review for only, let's say, the first 200 pages, I would have given it 4 stars. But the ending dropped it down to like 3.25 stars. Congratulations, my first less than 3-star read of the year! Not even in the second half of January!

I AM going to read more Agatha Christie books, but hopefully they're more like Hercule Poirot's Christmas and The Mysterious Affair at Styles.