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Book of the week
| Every now and then, I drop an Agatha Christie novel into my summer reading. Perplexing puzzles, vivid settings and flawed, fascinating character studies.
This summer I’ll read “Crooked House,” one of Christie’s self-proclaimed favorites.
It was adapted into a film in 2017 starring Glenn Close and Gillian Anderson. It is also on Amazon Prime.
The novel opens in post World War II rural England, where Charles and Sophia, who met on war-time duty in Egypt, are reunited at Sophia’s family estate, Three Gables.
That’s where Sophia’s wealthy grandfather has died and it’s quickly apparent that someone in the house connived to send him into an unnatural grave.
Charles’ father is an inspector at Scotland Yard and Christie sparkles as each member of the household — the grandfather’s young avaricious widow, Sophie’s hanger-on parents, the former nanny and more — fall under suspicion.
Read the novel and then stream the film. Early reviews say the vituperative dinner table dialogue should not be missed. |
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| | ‘Get Out’ meets ‘The Stepford Wives’ in Nicola Yoon’s new thriller |
New York Times bestselling author Nicola Yoon says it took years for the ideas in her new novel, “One of Our Kind” to marinate. But once she started writing, it only took her six weeks to write this satire about race and privilege.
On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Yoon joins MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about what led her to write a book about finding the sinister in a Shangri-La. When does our natural bent to protect and enjoy become destructive? What is the true meaning of community? | |
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