The nursery rhyme murders;: Including: A pocket full of rye, Hickory dickory death. The crooked house,

by Agatha Christie

A nursery rhyme figures tantalizingly in each of these novels, but there is nothing childlike about the dark secrets and darker deeds of some of the characters, nothing innocent about the murderers. Whether the detective featured is the delightful, sharp-eyed Miss Marple, the redoubtable Hercule Poirot, or Chief Inspector Taverner of Scotland Yard each one is challenged by an adversary worthy of a master of crime. Here is Agatha Christie at her best - baffling, daringly logical, and immensely entertaining.

Genres: Agatha Christie, Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller

505 pages, Unknown Binding

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

Agatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.

Associated Names:
Agata Christie
Agata Kristi
Агата Кристи (Russian)
Агата Крісті (Ukrainian)
Αγκάθα Κρίστι (Greek)
アガサ クリスティ (Japanese)
阿嘉莎·克莉絲蒂 (Chinese)

Reviews

[Wyyknot]

The nursery rhyme murders; including: A pocket full of rye, Hickory dickory death. The crooked house by Agatha Christie (1970)

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review title: Coming back for thirds

My third book club trilogy of Christie novels (following Make Mine Murder and Murder on Board) completes the trifecta from my local public library. They have several solo stories, which I will leave for later, and a collection of Hercule Poirot short stories which I plan to read next. As with the first pair, these stories do not disappoint.

The unifying thread of these stories is the nursery rhyme reference in each title, while the distinguishing feature is the solving detective.

A Pocket Full of Rye is a Miss Marple story riffing on the rhyme "Sing a song of six pence, a pocket full of rye", in which a businessman's suit jacket pocket full of rye is a clue to his murder...and leads to more.

Hickory Dickory Death has no other tie into the nursery rhyme; that doesn't stop Hercule Poirot from solving a seemingly unconnected series of petty theft and vandalism, but not before they lead to murder.

And The Crooked House, solved by the lesser-known Chief Inspector Taverner, does indeed involve a "crooked man", the ancient patriarch of a big extended family whose murder stresses their relationships and begets yet another. This last story is unusual in being written in first-person perspective by an interested party who is neither a policeman nor a family member but has a romantic involvement in a member of the family who may be a suspect. It was also perhaps the best of the nine stories in the trio of trilogies even though I did have a rough guess who might be the murderer. A false ending and then a sudden and surprising final twist kept me riveted even when it revealed my guess was correct.

[Margarita · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Crooked House is the third book in The Nursery Rhyme Murders (A Pocket Full of Rye, and Hickory Dickory Death are the other two), which are all vintage Agatha Christie.
But it was The Crooked House (along with the Ordeal by Innocence) that Dame Agatha thought satisfied her best of all of her own detective books. When Aristide Leonides, a rich patriarch of the close knit Leonides family, suddenly dies of eserine poisoning (injected instead of insulin), his various surviving relatives are suspected in the murder. The author weaves her false clues to keep you guessing which one, throwing a subsequent murder of the Nanny (for the three grandchildren residing in the house) and attempted murder of the twelve-year old Josephine into the mix. But the big reveal as to the true identity of the murderer will shock you to the core at the very end. Even more shocking are the killer’s motives, as they evoke a face of the sociopath, lacking any remorse for the committed crime. If you like detective mysteries, this is definitely a classic to enjoy!

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books consists of three individual books: A Pocket Full of Rye, Hickory Dickory Death, and The Crooked House. I enjoyed them all, but I found The Crooked House the most fascinating. You see, I had only fairly recently seen a TV adaptation of it, so I remembered clearly what had happened and who the murderer was. At first, I was a bit bored by the book because of that. But then I started to see all the clues Christie had left as to the murdered and the motive--and I was impressed. She sets it up quite early in the book and you can see it coming all the way through--but with so much misdirection I would think you wouldn't guess until the very end.

[Sergey · Rating 3 out of 5]

three mysteries; two re-reads. it all seems cozy and homey these christie stories, but “crooked house” is most sinister, (and one of) most atmospheric of all her novels that i’ve read in my lifetime. an enjoyable trip down memory lane (for the first two) and a new favorite (the last) in an arid desert to ward of boredom.

[Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 great Christie mysteries, esp for her later (1970s) work.

[Dhanya Jothimani · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Decent read if you like detective novels...

[Craig Schlossin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Agatha.

[William Dury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miss Marple investigates the murder of a shady businessman (“Pocketful of Rye”), Hercule Poirot investigates vandalism at a university boarding house that becomes a murder case (“Hickory Dickory Death”) and Inspector Taverner’s son helps in the inquiry of his fiancee’s grandfather’s sudden death in “Crooked House.” It’s a good collection, “Crooked House” being the best of the bunch. Interesting comparison with the Tana French novels which are are more like literary novels with a mystery baked in, and these which are more obviously just puzzles in and of themselves.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories are mostly dialogue, but interesting reads.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agatha Christie is always perfect on a fall day.