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One of my very favorite things about Agatha Christie is that when she said anyone could be a murderer under the right circumstances, she *meant* it. One would think that when you read a mystery, you should suspect everyone, but for most authors it just isn't true--if you read a "cozy" author, you can bet it won't be one of the charming young lovers, or the trusty Watson-like friend, or dear old Granny, or the kindly priest, etc. With Dame Agatha, it could be any of those, or everybody, or nobody (oh yes! I can think of at least one example of a suicide disguised as murder). It could be the person with the perfect alibi or the one with no apparent motive (but there really is a motive). This is why I think of Dame Agatha as absolutely ruthless in her fiction, however genteel she was in life, and Crooked House is Exhibit A! She was particularly proud of this novel, and rightly so.

Oddly enough, I know from her notebooks that Dame Agatha didn't have a specific murderer in mind when she began this novel. She had the premise of the extended family in their mansion, whose patriarch has died, but she debated among several suspects. I must say, if she'd chosen anyone else I would be giving this fewer stars--I felt it almost as a physical blow when she revealed the truth, then immediately thought that no other ending would have done half so well.

I love Dame Agatha's use of the multi-valenced term "crooked" here. It is a reference to one of the nursery rhymes that she employs to such creepy effect in many of her novels ("and they all lived together in a little crooked house"). The victim was a bit crooked in the legal sense, but he had a good heart. Someone in his family is mentally off-kilter in a far more sinister sense. Even the house is lopsided due to its whimsical design. The running motif is well done and makes the novel worth re-reading even once the shocking twist is known. It's one of my favorites, just as it was one of Dame Agatha's own.