Murder in Mesopotamia

Murder in Mesopotamia is written in the first person by Nurse Amy Leatheran, and concerns the members of an archaeological expedition in Iraq.

Nurse Amy has been employed by the expedition’s leader, Dr Eric Leidner, to take care of his wife Louise who has been having unexplained fears and nervous ‘fancies.’ It is generally accepted by the other members of the dig that these terrors are without foundation and by the uncharitable that they are nothing more than ‘attention seeking.’

Notwithstanding this, there is an undeniable atmosphere of tension and unrest amongst the residents of the expedition house; and then tragedy strikes.

Louise Leidner had been married once before and it transpires that a figure from her past may well be responsible for the shocking events that occur; had Louise’s fears been all-too-real after all? She is undoubtedly the catalyst that gives rise to subsequent happenings.

Hercule Poirot happens to be on a visit to Baghdad when all this is happening, so naturally the authorities ask him to assist with bringing the culprit to justice, which of course he does.

This is a very clever book. Agatha does perhaps stretch our credulity a long way, but who cares? There are some good character studies with the various expedition members displaying the whole gamut of emotions – love, hate, jealousy, resentment etc. etc.

As often happens in an Agatha Christie novel, there are a couple of sub-plots which the unwary may fail to distinguish as red herrings and there are not too many actual clues (or at least I didn’t find them) but there is one big clue which I failed completely to recognise as such. Maybe you can do better.

You can get hold of Murder in Mesopotamia via the following links.

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