Talk Back

[edting]

34. Crooked House by Agatha Christie (1949)

Back when I was in the fifth grade, I asked Mrs. Schultz, my math teacher, to recommend a good book for me to read. She suggested “Crooked House” by Agatha Christie. I can still remember that day in the bookstore at the Warwick Mall in 1975, asking my parents to buy me this book. It had this cool (for the 1970s) bright lime green, disco-inspired cover. When I got the book home I found it was over my head and I put it away.

The book has followed me around for the past 30+ years as I moved from place to place. The other day I needed a book for an airplane and I grabbed it in a hurry. Thus a minor 30+ year old chapter in my life has come to a close.

As for the book itself…it isn’t very good. It’s about as pedestrian a mystery as I’ve ever read, and I am wondering what Mrs. Schultz saw in it. A wealthy man is poisoned in his mansion, and the residents, many of whom are related to him, are all suspects. The title of the book is meant to suggest that the people are all odd in some way, but I found them to be fairly ordinary mystery novel characters. The writing is bland, and has this calm reserve about it (this is the same tone that drives me nuts in many forms of British art.)

Still, even though I didn’t like Crooked House, I’m glad to have finally read it.

-Ed