书名：Crooked House 怪屋 难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数630L 作者：Agatha Christie 出版社名称：HarperCollins 出版时间：2017 语种：英文 ISBN：9780008196349 商品尺寸：12.9 x 1.6 x 19.8 cm 包装：平装 页数：256英国作家阿加莎·克里斯蒂被誉为“侦探小说女王”，同时她也是侦探文学史上伟大的作家。本书Crooked House《怪屋》是阿加莎创作的又一部侦探小说，也是阿加莎本人非常满意的作品之一。作者通过本书传达了一个观念：被害者大多是凶手所爱的人，而非他们仇恨的人。这也许是因为，深爱的人更能让你觉得生命难以承受。 A wealthy Greek businessman is found dead at his London home… The Leonides were one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That was until the head of the household, Aristide, was murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiance of the late millionare’s granddaughter… Review ‘Writing Crooked House was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best.’--Agatha Christie ‘Her sleight of hand is impeccable.’--New Statesman ‘Knock-out!’--Saturday Review of Literature 青年外交官查尔斯与美丽的索菲娅相爱，两人约定在二战结束后成婚。 战后，查尔斯回到英国，听到的第1个消息便是索菲娅的爷爷——富商利奥尼迪斯在家中被人毒杀。查尔斯试图从住在这幢怪屋里的十一个人中找出凶手，未婚妻却对他说：“我们是一个怪异的大家庭，所有人都冷酷无情——但这种冷酷是以不同的形式表现出来的。这就是麻烦所在，让人看不清真相……” 阿加莎·克里斯蒂原名为阿加莎·玛丽·克拉丽莎·米勒，1890年9月15日生于英国德文郡托基的阿什菲尔德宅邸。她几乎没有接受过正规的教育，但酷爱阅读，尤其痴迷于歇洛克·福尔摩斯的故事。 一战期间，阿加莎·克里斯蒂成了一名志愿者。战争结束后，她创作了自己的第1部侦探小说《斯泰尔斯庄园奇案》。几经周折，作品于1920年正式出版，由此开启了克里斯蒂辉煌的创作生涯。1926年，《罗杰疑案》由哈珀柯林斯出版公司出版。这部作品一举奠定了阿加莎·克里斯蒂在侦探文学领域不可撼动的地位。阿加莎·克里斯蒂的创作生涯持续了50余年，总共创作了80部侦探小说。她的作品畅销全世界100多个国家和地区，累计销量已经突破20亿册。阿加莎·克里斯蒂是柯南·道尔之后伟大的侦探小说作家，是侦探文学黄金时代的开创者和集大成者。1971年，英国女王授予克里斯蒂爵士称号，以表彰其不朽的贡献。 1976年1月12日，阿加莎·克里斯蒂逝世于英国牛津郡沃灵福德家中，被安葬于牛津郡的圣玛丽教堂墓园，享年85岁。 Agatha Christiewas born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign countries. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.

I first came to know Sophia Leonides in Egypt towards the end of the war. She held a fairly high administrative post in one of the Foreign Office departments out there. I knew her first in an official capacity, and I soon appreciated the efficiency that had brought her to the position she held, in spite of her youth (she was at that time just twenty-two). Besides being extremely easy to look at, she had a clear mind and a dry sense of humour that I found very delightful. We became friends. She was a person whom it was extraordinarily easy to talk to and we enjoyed our dinners and occasional dances very much. All this I knew; it was not until I was ordered East at the close of the European war that I knew something else—that I loved Sophia and that I wanted to marry her. We were dining at Shepheard’s when I made this discovery. It did not come to me with any shock of surprise, but more as the recognition of a fact with which I had been long familiar. I looked at her with new eyes—but I saw what I had already known for a long time. I liked everything I saw. The dark crisp hair that sprang up proudly from her forehead, the vivid blue eyes, the small square fighting chin, and the straight nose. I liked the well-cut light-grey tailor-made, and the crisp white shirt. She looked refreshingly English and that appealed to me strongly after three years without seeing my native land. Nobody, I thought, could be more English—and even as I was thinking exactly that, I suddenly wondered if, in fact, she was, or indeed could be, as English as she looked. Does the real thing ever have the perfection of a stage performance? I realized that much and freely as we had talked together, discussing ideas, our likes and dislikes, the future, our immediate friends and acquaintances—Sophia had never mentioned her home or her family. She knew all about me (she was, as I have indicated, a good listener) but about her I knew nothing. She had, I supposed, the usual background, but she had never talked about it. And until this moment I had never realized the fact. Sophia asked me what I was thinking about.