Video games were never a cause of crime.
Let’s go back seventy years in history and take a look.
Today I am going to review one of the Christie’s Classic, Crooked House. Labelled as Christie’s personal favorite and based on the nursery rhyme about a crooked man, Crooked House was published in 1949, long before the first video game came into existence (which was, by the way, invented in 1958). What is the link between this murder mystery and video games, you may ask.
Lets take a look at the story.
Synopsis
The Leonides were a big happy family until one day someone decided to kill the head of the family, Aristide Leonides. All family members were suspects in the cat and mouse chase of a killer who did not hesitate to strike again.
Setting
The story is set in the suburb of Swinly Dean in a post-second world war England in a big crooked house called Three Gables where the Leonides family lived together.
The Narrator
Meet Charles Hayword, a fine English gentleman, who would have had the heroic moments in the story, reduced to be just a narrator. This makes sense as it is a family murder mystery and he was the only outsider. His only motivation to solve the mystery was to make sure that his lady love, Sophia, the grand daughter of the victim, would accept his marriage proposal.
The Victim
Aristide Leonides, 85, was the patriarchial Greek-English man who came to England when he was just twenty four, and was very soon running a business empire. Scotland Yard described him as crooked enough to go around the law to not get caught with some superficial appeal to the opposite sex. Once widowed, Leonides married a second time to a woman half of his age. All in all, nobody really minded his death…
as far as the right person killed him.
Cause of Death
Poisoned by eserine, an ingredient of his own eyedrops, inserted into his insulin injections. The injection was administered by his wife, but the switch could have been made by anyone in the house.
The Usual Suspects
- Brenda Leonides — the young second wife of the victim, whom everyone wished to be the murderess so they would not had to doubt their blood family
- Roger Leonides — eldest son of Aristide Leonides; the bumble bee
- Clemency Leonides — wife of Roger Leonides; the scientist
- Phillip Leonides — youngest son of Aristide Leonides; the cold fish
- Magda West — wife of Phillip Leonides; the mischief maker
- Edith de Haviland — the aunt of Roger and Philip Leonides
- Sophia Leonides — eldest daughter of Phillip and Magda; Charles’ love interest
- Eustace Leonides — Sophia’s younger brother
- Josephine Leonides — Sophia and Eustace’s youngest sister
- Lawrence Brown — Tutor hired for Eustace and Josephine; rumored to be seeing Mrs Leonides in secret
- Janet Rowe — nanny of the young children
Storyline
The Leonides wanted the young Mrs Leonides to be the killer and there were rumors of her seeing the young tutor behind everyone’s back. How convenient it would be for everyone if the duo turned out to be the killer?
Initial Discoveries
The initial investigation led to some important discoveries. The first clue Charles got was that Roger and Clemeny were flying abroad as Roger had failed one of the business delegated to him by Aristide Leonides. The second clue was that Brenda and Lawrence were writing love letters to each other. The only trouble with these clues was that they were provided by none other than Sophia’s youngest 12 years old sister, Josephine.
Then there was the case of the missing will which every body had seen Mr Leonides signing but it was nowhere to find.
Mark of Cain
No, this is not from Supernatural.
In a discussion with his father, who also happened to be Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, about a common denominator found in all murderers — a sign which can be used to identify. Sir Arthur Hayword gave a word response. Vanity! Murderers want to talk. If not directly, then indirectly, they want to boast about their success.
All the clues pointed in one direction as there is only one character in the story who boasted about her detective prowess, but it might be inhumane to realize in the first read.
Magda decided to send Josephine to a Swiss school. Someone knocked off Josephine with a marble block placed on top of a door, just before she told Charles that it’s about time for the next murder. The missing will also turned up in a dramatic fashion and it was found that the poor old grandpa Leonides had actually bequeathed his entire property to Sophia. I think it would be a fantastic story still, if Sophia would have had turned out to be the killer. But, Alas!
Without giving a spoiler, I would just hint enough that it was one of her siblings. As I hinted in the title that it is a juvenile crime, and nothing makes a criminal more than the disregard for law and morality.
My Take about the story
It is one of the most unusual murder mysteries ever written by any writer. Keeping it in the family, all suspects were family members very much like Christie’s another novel, A Pocket Full of Rye. But here, the only outsider is the narrator himself which makes it wickedly interesting. They all have skeletons in their closets and live under perpetual fear of each other, except for Edith. The dynamics between characters are interesting, but feels repetitive, especially if you read it after reading A Pocket Full of Rye.
Christie has a great insight of stereotypes and it is more evident in this book than any other. Christie’s usual lot is there; one who always looks guilty, one who wants to take the front seat in a drama, one who is unfazed by anything, one who cares only about his peace of mind, one who is too protective but can actually kill for the same reason.
But at the end, what makes a great detective story?
The detective story differs from every other story in this: that the reader is only happy if he feels a fool
— G.K. Chesterton
Did I feel like a fool? Yes, I did.
Was there a second murder? Yes, there was.
Did the killer had one of the weirdest motives to kill? Yes, Indeed.
Can I call it one of the best murder mysteries of all time? Err, no.
The biggest problem I found in this story is lack of emotions. The only display of emotions was done by the beautiful, and probably the gold digger, wife of the deceased, and it was very difficult to feel compassion for her. You may also feel sympathy for Edith.
Other than that, you may feel nothing reading the entire story. Detective fiction usually do not pay enough attention to character development which can be clearly felt in this story.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
