Murder in Mesopotamia (School & Library Binding)

The setting is somewhere in the digs of outer Baghdad (obviously she drew these from her experiences with her second husband Max Mallowan, who was an archaeologist) in a quarters for archaeologists. Due to her unstable mental conditions (seeing faces at her window where no one could have stood and peered in), Dr Eric Lidner looks for a companion-nurse for his wife, Louise. He found Amy Leatheran who became Louise's confidante and one day she tells Amy that someone was after her, probably her first husband whom she thought had died. After that outburst Louise refused to talk about it anymore until one day when his husband found Louise's dead body in a locked room, in front of the whole achaeology team. Nurse Leatheran later finds herself as a suspect when Poirot arrives, but later became his sidekick.

Plot-wise, this is one of Agatha Christie's best. The stroyline is also richly layered, with various people who have different crimes of their own which unwittingly made them suspects. This is a wonderful read, as it was with the rest of the Queen's stories.

This 1935 novel is set in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) at an archeological dig, a setting that Christie came to know quite well after her marriage to an archeologist. A nurse, Amy Leatheran, has been engaged to care for the wife of the leader of an archeological expedition. She was told that the woman was suffering from 'nerves' only and that there was no real problem. Unfortunately for the patient her concerns turned out to be not imaginary after all, she was murdered. Hercule Poirot who was traveling through the area was brought into the case and of course solved the mystery.

MURDER IN MESPOTAMIA is part of a series of book that covers Poirot's Middle Eastern 'holiday' (APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH and MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS also chronicle this trip). It is unusual in that the story is narrated by Amy Leatheran who also acts as Poirot's assistant when he enters the story about 1/3 of the way through the story.

Although this is fairly laid out, as all of Christie's works, and has an intriguing and clever plot I found it difficult to really get into this one. Many of the characters were rather one dimensional and not very interesting. Still one of Christie's lesser works is still better than most other writer's best efforts.

All in all, an excellent read by one of the greatest authors of all time (and a decent TV movie, if you'd like to check it out.) :-)