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Murder in Mesopotamia (Agatha Christie Collection)

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This fabulous mystery by Agatha Christie has long been a favorite of mine. It outshines many of her other mysteries due to some wonderful atmosphere and a very likable heroine in Amy Leatheren. Hercule Poirot, though a major force in solving the mystery, plays second fiddle in this most entertaining murder mystery.

Murder in Mesopotamia is an adventure set in an exotic land where a murder occurs. The first half of the book almost has the feel of an M.M. Kaye mystery. Though one could not put Christie in the same class with Kaye in regards to romantic description of a time and place, there is certainly atmosphere to spare, and it is only when Hercule Poirot is introduced into the story that we see the classic elements of mystery fiction Agatha Christie invented come to the forefront.

Amy Leatheren is a young nurse asked to accompany an archaelogical expedition to the Middle East to look after Louise Leidner, the wife of the man heading the dig. Louise is a beautiful but frightened woman capable of both sweetness and offhand cruelty. What she is frightened of is quite vague but may be connected to tensions on the dig. On the suface it is friendly and familiar, but a dangerous unrest lies just beneath the surface.

Amy discovers answers to questions too late to prevent a particularly brutal murder and Christie's famous detective, Hercule Poirot, must solve the baffling puzzle of how the murder occurred. Amy has been asked to put on pen and paper her account of the events which transpired and this is her narrative. Soon she is acting as Poirot's helper and, to her delight and embarrassment, having the time of her life. There are both secret relationships and secret identities, and before too long, another murder.

Christie creates a wonderful atmosphere here. From the Tigris Palace Hotel in Baghdad to Tell Yarimjah, and from bazaars where people from various nationalities and backgrounds gather to tea and scones ovelooking the ruins she makes the archaelogical expedition come alive. You really get a sense of people moving about in a passion to discover this Assyrian city like Niveveh close to Hassanieh. You can almost see the beautiful and unusual Louise nearly asking to be murdered yet at the same time oblivious to the true danger that lies in wait.

While the solution is wildly intricate and implausible a fun and likable heroine and tons of atmosphere make for a great mystery read. A delightfully old-fashioned mystery fans of the genre will enjoy greatly.

Before the Murder on the Orient Express, there was the Murder in Mesopotamia. In fact, the Mesopotamian murder mystery occurred just before Hercule Poirot traveled to Istanbul and caught the Orient Express. As a team of archaeologists labors away at an ancient Tell, the leader's wife has her head smashed in a room which no one else could have entered or left. The local constabulary is mystified, and Hercule Poirot, who just happens to be traveling in the area, is called in to consult. After some preliminary investigation to get the lay of the land, Poirot decides that everyone on the dig, with the exception of the husband and a recently retained nurse, is a suspect. He then begins his methodical quest to make some sense out of the available evidence and solve the "locked room" mystery of the wife's death. During the course of the investigation the reader comes to suspect every single member of the team, and by the time the mystery is solved, the reader has been thoroughly bewildered by the bizarre turns of events. The solution is both logical and satisfying, and it accounts for all the loose ends quite nicely. Unfortunately, it is so highly improbable as to be near ludicrous. Whoever ultimately prosecuted the case should have thanked his lucky stars that the murderer confessed when confronted by Poirot. Poirot's solution was a work of sheer logic without, as Poirot admitted, a shred of evidence to back it up. Poirot followed Sherlock Holmes' formula of eliminating the impossible. What he was left with, although improbable in the extreme, was what must have happened.

Christie entertains throughout, but I have two quibbles:

1. She deliberately misleads the reader in two particulars as the story unfolds, so that the solution becomes all the more surprising.

2. Christie spins an entertaining yarn, and she may have been very knowledgeable on the subject of murder, but she betrays absolutely no understanding of the mechanics of perpetrating real-life murders or conducting real-life murder investigations. The killer's modus operandi reminds me of Rube Goldberg. The murderer's plan was so complex, so dependent upon others unwittingly doing just exactly as expected, and so likely to miscarry even if everyone followed the script, that no intelligent murderer would attempt it. When Poirot announces his solution, he prefaces his remarks with the caveat that he hasn't got a shred of evidence to back it up. After being confronted, the murderer obligingly confesses. An investigator attempting to get a murderer to confess would never announce going in that he had no evidence. A murderer confronted with zero evidence of guilt would never, ever supply the deficit by confessing.

I listened to the BBC radio production of the story as I drove on a long business trip. Poirot made the miles slip by much faster.

since his trip to the Middle East seems to keep him working.

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.

Although I enjoyed the setting of Murder in Mesopotamia (an archaeological dig), I found this book to be rather hackneyed and commonplace, definitely not up to Agatha Christie's standards. Somehow the characters seemed to be 2 dimensional...the only character who interested me was the young man who reminded the narrator of a Wodehouse character. In fact, after reading this book, I sallied forth to the library and checked out a book by P.G. Wodehouse, just so I could see what Ms. Christie was talking about. I highly recommend the works of Mr. Wodehouse, but not Murder in Mesopotamia. While I admit that the identity of the killer surprised me, by the time the murderer was unmasked, I was indifferent to the whole case. If you want to read a great Agatha Christie, read Death Comes as the End or And Then There Were None or Hallowe'en Party....they're all much better than Murder in Mesopotamia.

I'm a big fan of Agatha Christie mysteries, and I've read most of the popular ones (Murder On The Orient Express, Death On The Nile, Evil Under The Sun, and so on). I've also read many lesser known ones, and some of them, I've found to be quite good (Five Little Pigs, Murder On The Links, Towards Zero.). Others, however, I've found to be not so good (Cards On The Table, Sparkling Cyanide, Third Girl, Dead Man's Folly), so when I saw that A&E was making a movie of "Murder In Mesopotamia", a book I'd noticed many times in book stores, but never had enough interest in to pick up, I decided to go out and buy it before the movie was shown. I was a little worried, as I had no idea what to expect from this novel. I'm very pleased to say I was surprised. The book was great.

It's in a very interesting setting, an archaeological expedition near Iraq. The characters are varied and colorful, from the talkative and somewhat annoying Bill Coleman to the deep and mysterious David Emmott, the catty and deceitful Mrs. Mercado to the somewhat manly Miss Johnson. And not to mention the one and only Hercule Poirot!

But the real star of the book is Nure Leatheran. She replaces Hastings as Poirot's assistant, as well as the narrator, and you'll soon find yourself feeling like the nurse is a close friend of yours, simply telling you something that happened to her while she was over in Iraq.

The victim is Mrs. Leidner, wife of the famous archaeologist. There are many different opinions as to her character: some believe she's a scheming, power-hungry woman. Other think she's wonderful. But one thing everyone agrees upon is that her looks are stunning. But lately, Mrs. Leidner has been scared to death due to a number of annonymous letters threatening to kill her. Few people take it seriously, until she's found bludgeoned to death.

Then, the race is on to find a killer! And it's an urgent race indeed, for as Poirot says, "murder is a habit." But can even Hercule Poirot catch a murderer amongst the expedition staff, before the true killer finds a second victim? There's only one way to find out. Pick up Murder in Mesopotamia.

Agatha Christie's second husband was a famous archaeologist. Dame Agatha spent many pleasurable years traveling with him to digs throughout the Middle East. Iraq is the setting for Murder in Mesopotamia one of her finest Hercule Poirot novels.

The Plot: Amy Leatheren is the narrator of the story. She is a nurse who travels East with Major and Mrs. Kelsey to care for their new baby. They return to England; meanwhile Amy is employed by Dr. Leidner to care for his wife Louise. Louise believes she is being sent letters from her first husband. He was a German spy during World War I who was executed after Louise reported him to the government. Shortly after Amy is employed to join the Leidner expedition, Louise is brutally murdered. There are several suspects:

Young men who are on the dig team include Bill Coleman, Richard Carey and Joseph Mercado (whose wife is jealous of the lovely engimatic Louise).

Other suspects include: Father Lavigny a supposed expert in ancient languages; Anne Johnson a long time assistant to Leidner and Sheila Reilly a wiseacre young English lass who does not like Louise. L

Hercule Poirot is called in to solve the crime. The little grey cells are used to perfection and the murderer is revealed!

The atmosphere of the Middle East; the winsome quality of Nurse Amy and the difficulty in solving the murder make for a grand mixture of pleasurable reading for the fan of Christie and the classic English murder mystery novel! Have fun!

If circumstances arise in which life seems to be throwing an especially large amount of manure my way, Ms. Christie never fails in adding a little ray of sunshine to a crappy state of affairs. Hercule Poirot's 13th adventure is only one of four in which I've guessed correctly on the solution. One aspect I've found engaging about reading the Poirot mysteries in the order in which the author wrote them is picking up little factoids about the Belgian's own history. The book is narrated through the eyes of a nurse, Amy Leatheran. Her disciplined personality lends well to the feel of the story. As usual, Ms. Christie shows her powers as a mystery writer by keeping the extraneous clues to a minimum and still leaving the reader in the dark. Her works are quite addictive despite Ms. Christie making me feel like an idiot. "Murder in Mesopotamia" is a wonderful, summer read for anyone looking to exercise their little grey cells.

During his travels in the Middle East in the 1930s, Poirot solves a murder that has taken place amongst an archeological expedition, with the help of a middle-aged nurse called Amy Leatheran. Although written after Murder on the Orient Express, this particular mystery occurs just prior to Poirot's most famous case (in fact Poirot is on his way to Baghdad when he's diverted by this particular mystery).

It is Amy that provides the first-person narrative, writing on the behest of the man who involved her in the case in the first place, a doctor-friend who set her up as a nurse for his friend's wife. Doctor Leidner is a Swedish-American archeologist whose wife is suffering from nervous fits and anxiety, but when Amy meets her she is instantly captivated by the woman's beauty and charm. Louise Leidner is an intriguing character: intoxicating and charismatic, she is unknowingly creating a lot of tension amidst both male and female members of the excavation.

Providing Mrs Leidner with companionship, Amy is soon told the reason for the woman's growing fear: over the course of her life she has received threatening letters from her first husband, a man who was supposed to have died in a railway accident long ago. His letters insist that she never love another man but him; now that she's remarried, she's been living in fear.

And, naturally, she has good reason to be afraid. When she is found dead in her bedroom, the police manage to rope Mr Poirot in to investigate matters. After ascertaining that the killer must have come from inside the house, Poirot recruits Amy as his eyes and ears within the household, and the commonsensical Amy helps him make his inquiries. Although she herself adored Louise (a character who was said to be based on a real woman that Christie met on one of her husband's digs), it becomes clear that not everyone felt the same way about the woman who always insisted on being the centre of attention, and the instigator of drama. Plotting through the web of love affairs, jealousies, secrets and lies that permeate the group, Poirot naturally comes up with the solution.

Amy is a good choice for the storyteller, for though it means that Poirot is not very prominent, she makes for an insightful and chatty narrator who is neither very old nor very young, unlike most of Christie's other protagonists. As such, Amy has a blend of both naivety and wisdom that allows her to form accurate and sensible opinions, but which means she remains completely in the dark as to what's really happening (and the fact that she dislikes the stuffy and rather arrogant Poirot is another point in her favour!) As the requisite victim, Louise Leidner is one of Christie's most intriguing characters - lovely and charming, but with a cruel streak, described as a "female Iago" and the unattainable "La Belle Dame sans Merci" of Keat's poem - and it's almost a shame when she's killed! Her interactions with the rest of the excavation group are fascinating, as are their reactions to her death.

Although not one of Christie's best mysteries, "Murder in Mesopotamia" is one of her most atmospheric. Drawing on her own experiences with an archeological husband and her travels in the Middle East, Christie creates an eerie and mysterious setting for her story - though at the same time she slyly points out that the Western perception of the East as an exotic and fairytale-like place is a myth, and that the beauty of Iraq lies in its stark, gritty landscape. Amusingly, Amy isn't impressed with either Iraq or archeology at first (looking upon the excavation site as a mud pit), but gradually comes to appreciate its splendor at about the same time she grasps understanding of the suspects around her: "like a piece of fusty old stuff you take into the light and suddenly see the rich colors of an old embroidery."

It is the resolution that prevents this from being one of Christie's best mysteries, simply because the central premise is so implausible. It's impossible for me to elaborate further without giving away the ending, and since reading the book I have read other readers' justification of the premise that helps me make more sense of it, if not entirely accept it. But at the time, it jolted me out of the story.

Still, no Christie mystery is a waste of time, and "Murder in Mesopotamia" contains some of her best characterization and descriptive passages.

Oh how I love Agatha Christie and the famous Hercule Poirot. Murder In Mesopotamia is now officially one of my favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. Why? Because I just simply didn't see the ending coming. Christie was so talented at leading you to look everywhere but at the actual perpetrator. Of course, by saying this I may give something away, but trust me, if you read this you will not be disappointed.

In typical fashion, Hercule Poirot just happens to be passing through when the latest murder happens, and naturally he is called upon to try to solve the mystery. Initially Amy Leatheran is skeptical of his abilities, but in his usual way, Poirot is able to convince her that despite his silly appearance and tendancies towards arrogance at times, he does indeed know what he's doing.

One of the things I love about Agatha Christie is that she always sets the stage for the crime to occur. We see the characters before the murder actually takes place and start to form opinions about who might have a motive and a means. Next, she adeptly leads us through Poirot's questionings of all of the possible suspects, leaving it up to us to try to decipher clues that she subtly drops. I think I have yet to solve one of her mysteries for myself. I have come close, but never quite dead-on. This particular mystery ranks right up there with The Murder of Roger Akroyd, for me.

"Murder in Meopotamia" is one of Agatha Christie's novels to feature Hercule Poirot in the Middle East, combining her sleuth's extraordinary detective skills with her own knowledge and love for archaeology. As with all Christie works, it is a fast-paced read filled with her trademark twists. The narration this time is provided by Amy Leatheran, a nurse who acts as counterpart to Poirot when he is called to the scene of the crime.

Nurse Amy Leatheran finds herself called to an archaeological dig in Hassanieh to spend time with Mrs. Leidner, wife of the dig's supervisor, Dr. Leidner. She has the nickname "Lovely Louise" and a reputation for toying with people. Nurse Leatheran sees a different side of her, a woman scared to death that she is going to be killed. For Mrs. Leidner has been receiving threatening letters for some time and her husband does not believe she is in any particular danger. It is just a case of the nerves, in his opinion. But when his wife is found murdered, Hercule Poirot is called in and the great sleuth knows that the guilty party must be someone connected with Dr. Leidner's dig. For even though Dr. Leidner claims everyone adored his wife, the stories that the other characters have to tell do not match the good doctor's opinion.

"Murder in Mesopotamia" is an intriguing mystery, not quite as convoluted as other Christie pieces, but just as satisfying a puzzle to solve. The matter-of-fact narration from the character of Amy Leatheran is a welcome change from other Poirot stories, for she knows nothing about him and sees him and his idiosyncracies through fresh eyes. "Murder in Mesopotamia" once again affirms Christie's rightful place as the top mystery writer, for she can make the most confounding riddle as clear as a bell with no red herrings left unaccounted for.