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Published in 1949 this is a stand-alone Agatha Christie novel which was, apparently, one of her personal favourites. Our narrator, Charles Hayward, fell in love with Sophia Leonides during the war and intends to marry her if he returns safely to England. However, his plans are thwarted when Sophia’s grandfather, Aristide Leonides, is poisoned and the family come under suspicion � with Sophia stating she will not marry him until the crime is solved.

Sophia and her family would prefer the murderer to be her grandfather’s young widow, Brenda, or the tutor of Sophia’s young brother Eustace, and sister Josephine; a young man named Laurence who was a conscientious objector and who the family suspect of being in love with Brenda. Of course, things are rarely that easy and there are a whole cast of possible suspects, living in the ‘little crooked house,� of the Leonides family, including Sophia’s parents, including her volatile, actress mother, her aunt and uncle and her elderly great-aunt.

Christie places Charles Hayward in the perfect place to investigate; making him the son of the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard and allowing him to tag along with Chief Inspector Taverner, who is dealing with the case. Hayward senior is the perfect Assistant Commissioner, gruffly welcoming his son back from the war, accepting his declaration of love for a possible murder suspect and working out ‘who did it,� but keeping that information close to his chest until the end of the book. Much of the enjoyment of this mystery comes from the cast of characters and you feel that Christie really did have a lot of fun creating them. This novel shows that Golden Age mysteries, and Christie in particular, did not shy away from difficult topics and this is, in no way, the cosy crime novel that readers not familiar with her writing might expect.