I thought this was going to be an easy cosy crime read, it was so much more! With an intricate plot and some brilliant characters! The main character Agatha was hard to like but I couldn’t stop reading wanting to find out what happened next. A real nod towards the legend that is Agatha Christie.
I really enjoyed this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my arc.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it had that element that I was looking for from a Golden Age detective like novel. I was invested in figuring out what was happening and how everything worked together. Tom Spencer has a strong writing style and can't wait for more.

Shenanigans Aplenty..
Agatha Dorn’s life is about to take a wholly unexpected turn in this quirky, unpredictable and completely engaging whodunit. Discovering the presumed lost manuscript by the goddess of Golden Age Detective fiction is merely the tip of a very precarious iceberg. Shenanigans aplenty, a cast of eccentric and eclectic characters and a maniacal plot laced amply with Golden Age references complete a wonderfully readable and satisfying package..

Thank you to NetGalley for the digital ARC!

The Mystery of the Crooked Man by Tom Spencer offers a gripping premise with its eerie atmosphere and intricate web of secrets, making for a compelling start. However, the pacing feels uneven at times, with some sections dragging while others quickly rush through important revelations. The characters, though interesting, lack the depth needed to truly connect with readers, leaving some emotional investment feeling shallow. Overall, while the mystery keeps you hooked, it doesn’t quite deliver the satisfying resolution one might hope for.

I'll admit to still being somewhat bewildered by the plot of this book despite having finished it and had it explained by several different characters at the end.

I am very bad at working out whodunnit in any mystery novel. Unfortunately, Agatha Dorn (the protagonist of this mystery) might actually be worse.

Agatha works as an archivist during the day but her real passion is the work of Gladden Green, a mystery writer from the early 20th century. On finding an unpublished Green Agatha decides to circumvent the usual checks and has the novel published, giving herself a percentage of the royalties.

Of course disaster is just around the corner for Agatha, who has a massive inferiority complex, when the novel is discovered to be fake. This coincides with the loss of a former girlfriend.

Agatha finds herself in noone's good books but plans to find out whether the Green really is fake and also what happened to Murgatroyd, her deceased ex.

So the actual plot is explained at length at the end but throughout the book you will notice that Agatha misses some incredibly easy clues. In fact she spends most of thr book blundering about getting everything wrong. But maybe that's the point. A useless amateur detective to counter the amateur detectives of the Christie novels which this appears to be some form of homage to.

You'll notice that throughout the book the names of characters are taken straight from several Christie novels - A Murder is Announced is particularly heavily plundered.

So perhaps I've read this book all wrong. Perhaps this wasnt so much a pastiche of Christie's work as it was a parody. I'll leave you to decide. I wasn't particularly keen on the verbose style of the prose but that's a personal opinion.

Not really for me but it passed a few hours even if I was as puzzled at the end as I was at the beginning.

Thankyou to Netgalley for the advance review copy.

I read an E-ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is a twisty and intriguing mystery with a really difficult to like protagonist. I understand that the complexity of the main character Agatha was integral to the story- something which becomes increasingly important as the story progresses - but it did sometimes make it difficult for me to want to keep reading. Agatha as a main character was just someone I wanted to spend time with.
This certainly was not a cosy read, it was challenging and at times quite upsetting and I found the concept of a life in complete free fall difficult.
The ending was satisfying and I would never have been able to guess the end.

What an absolute delight. I picked up THE MYSTERY OF THE CROOKED MAN on a whim and found myself reading it in its entirety in a single afternoon. This cozy mystery follows archivist Agatha Dorn after her discovery of an unpublished mystery by a (barely) fictionalized version of Agatha Christie. She has an elderly mother with dementia who she really doesn't like very much, an estranged older brother, and a former partner who is still entangled in her life. She has, to put it mildly, a very full plate.

Yes, our sleuth Agatha Dorn is not exactly likable - the blurb describes her as 'cantankerous' and I cannot think of a better use of that adjective. And yet, she grows on you. She's an unconventional protagonist and all of her various quirks make her a very good fit for the pacing of this mystery. The book itself is a tongue-in-cheek homage to Agatha Christie with references that avid Christie readers will recognize. Places, character names, etc. are all little nudges.

I regret that the blurb gives a way a little bit too much, and that we don't have more development around Agatha's relationship with her former partner (aptly named Amy Murgatroyd, for fans of Christie's A Murder is Announced). Otherwise, this was a joy from cover to cover.

If you anxiously wait for another in the Marlow Murder Club series or if you're particularly fond of Christie's Tommy and Tuppence, this deserves a place on your list. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy. All opinions are entirely my own.

A fun whodunnit written in tribute to the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. Fans of AC will find many references and clues to her work and life within the story (so many!). As a reader and collector of AC's books, i loved this aspect of the story!

The story centres around Agatha Dorn who works as an archivist in a library of rare manuscripts and first editions. She comes across an unpublished manuscript of Gladden Green, a writer whose novels featured a foreign detective named Pere Flambeau. Agatha becomes famous for discovering the manuscript but before you know it, it's suddenly renounced as a fake! The plot becomes quite complicated at that point with Agatha becomes embroiled with a number of shady people (including co-workers, ex-lovers and family) who will stop at nothing, including killing those who get in their way, to get what they want. There are of course a few red herrings and twists along the way, as one would expect, although I found the storyline a little confusing at times.

Agatha is a fabulous and funny character you can't help both love as well as dislike a little (you just can't hate her). She's sassy, outrageously honest and determined to get to the truth: the story is really enjoyable and the references to AC are great fun.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book and provide a review.

A very different mystery story and not what I was expecting. It was however an intriguing story that paid homage to the goldenage crime fiction that I love. The main character, Agatha Dorn is truly unlikeable, she is rude, nasty and drinks too much. The story showed promise but I did find that Agatha started to annoy me intensely as she had no redeeming features whatsoever ever. My mystery was quite interesting though and it had enough plot twists and red herrings for me to finish it satisfactorily.

I love the premise of this book! But when it came to actually reading it, it came up short for me. I found Agatha's character hard to like and the story built up rather slowly. The solution to the story was surprising, and not at all what I was expecting.

This book is definitely not for everyone.

The Mystery of the Crooked Man by Tom Spencer is a nod to Golden Age mysteries, my wheelhouse. Reading this novel gave me slivers of the era I was hoping for. Murder? Got it. Red herrings? Yes, of course. Whodunit? Read it to find out! The writing is witty, quick and intelligent and flowed easily from character to character, thought to thought.

Agatha Dorn, an expert in all things cozy mystery, is also an archivist who gets passed over for a work promotion. But her discovery of a lost manuscript written by the illustrious Gretna Green propels her into much-craved limelight as a minicelebrity. She feels a certain grandiose entitlement to treat workers as "help" much to their annoyance. But the manuscript is a hoax which throws a spanner into the works. An old friend dies and she reflects on their relationship and what could have been. She does some sleuthing and uncovers surprising secrets.

The premise is exciting and the story is beautifully original, full of eccentricities and mayhem. Agatha's character infuriated me at times with her drinking and treatment of others. I love to hate characters as much as the next reader but in this case, she had no endearing or other redemptive qualities. Though this was a fun read, it did not whack me on the head as I had hoped. But clearly this would be unmissable for the right person who enjoys cozies with a hint of more than coziness.

My sincere thank you to Steerforth Press and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this quirky novel.

I wanted to love this book! The plot is interesting but the execution is tough. Agatha is difficult to warm to, as the description promises, but I began to find her frustratingly inept. I think callousness in a character works best when they’re also clever or smart. Agatha is neither. Her drunken behavior became annoying and by the time the eyepatch came out I was losing interesting. The manuscript mystery had so much potential, unfortunately the other mysteries and the lack of direction or progress hindered it all. I genuinely think I would’ve liked this book so much more if they’d not named a character Murgatroyd.

Very different. Very entertaining. The main character is Ignatius O’Reilly meets an acidic Miss Marple.. The plotting verges on absurdist with twists galore. The solution surprised me. This may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I enjoyed it a lot.