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Roger Leonides

Christian McKay as Roger Leonides

In the novel Crooked House, Roger Leonides is the eldest son of Aristide Leonides. Roger is married to Clemency, a scientist. Roger runs Associated Catering, a catering company founded by his father. Roger and Clemency used to live in London but were bombed out early during World War 2 and went to live with Aristide at Three Gables. On the day of the death of his father, Roger had been away at Box House in London, the headquarters of his company.

Sophia Leonides thought of Roger, her uncle as "the kindest and most lovable person in the world", but she noted that"he's got a really terrific temper. Things make his blood boil and then he hardly knows what he's doing." Charles Hayward had the same impression of him. He observed that Roger had a room full of photographs of groups: "School groups, cricket groups, military groups. Water colour sketches of deserts and minarets, and of sailing boats and sea effects and sunsets." To Hayward, this was a pleasant room, "the room of a lovable friendly companionable man".

However police inquiries soon revealed that Associated Catering had been badly managed by Roger for a number of years and was on the point of collapse. The police did not think that Roger had deliberately embezzled money, it was just that he lacked judgment and made poor business decisions. These findings supported something which Josephine Leonides told Hayward, that Roger and his father had a tense interview the day before the latter died and that Roger and Clemency had planned to go abroad. All this made Roger a plausible suspect in the murder of his father.

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