Murder in Mesopotamia [Hardcover]

Agatha Christie (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: Demco Media (February 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0606009655
• ISBN-13: 978-0606009652
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,015,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adventure and Murder in an Exotic Land, January 23, 2006

By 

Bobby Underwood "starlighthotel" (Manly NSW, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Murder in Mesopotamia (Hercule Poirot) (Paperback)

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.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unearthing the Truth at an Archaeological Dig, February 18, 2001

By 

George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Murder in Mesopotamia (BBC Radio Presents) (Audio Cassette)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps Poirot should have vacationed somewhere else..., June 1, 2004

By 

Jeanne Tassotto (Trapped in the Midwest) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Murder in Mesopotamia (Hercule Poirot) (Paperback)

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.