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Murder in Mesopotamia: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Agatha Christie Collection) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IN the hall of the Tigris Palace Hotel in Baghdad a hospital nurse was finishing a letter..." (more)
Key Phrases: photographic room, expedition staff, expedition house, Miss Johnson, Father Lavigny, Captain Maitland (more...)

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"Smooth, highly original and completely absorbing" New York Times --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Agatha Christie is beyond criticism. (New Statesman and Nation) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers (March 30, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 157912691X
ISBN-13: 978-1579126919
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,410 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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First Sentence:
IN the hall of the Tigris Palace Hotel in Baghdad a hospital nurse was finishing a letter. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
photographic room, expedition staff, expedition house

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Johnson, Father Lavigny, Captain Maitland, Nurse Leatheran, Miss Reilly, David Emmott, Frederick Bosner, Richard Carey, Carl Reiter, Sheila Reilly, Hercule Poirot, Louise Leidner, Tell Yarimjah, William Bosner, Bill Coleman, Major Kelsey, Major Pennyman, Lovely Louise, Amy Leatheran, Crewe Train, Linda Condon, William Coleman

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 9 books:

THE Snow Queen (Viking Kestrel picture books) by Hans Christian Andersen on page 181
The Tuesday Club Murders: A Miss Marple Mystery (Agatha Christie Collection) by Agatha Christie in Back Matter
The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen on page 181
Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen on page 181
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie in Back Matter

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30 books cite this book:

Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie by Bruce Pendergast on 10 pages
Agatha Christie: A Reader's Companion by Vanessa Wagstaff on 7 pages
Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism between the Wars by Alison Light on 5 pages
Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Agatha Christie Collection) by Agatha Christie in Front Matter, and Back Matter
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology by Paul G. Bahn on page 243, and page 356

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Poirot in the Orient by Agatha Christie

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Customer Reviews

38 Reviews

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10 of 10 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" (Bakersfield, California United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

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.

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9 of 11 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 (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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.

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4 of 4 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 (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

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.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Psychology of the human heart
Murder in Mesopotamia is set in Iraq prior to 1935 on the site of a British archeological expedition. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Asmah

5.0 out of 5 stars One of her best, in my opinion
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? Read more

Published 3 months ago by Melissa B. Owens

5.0 out of 5 stars Murder Most Foul
"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... Read more

Published 6 months ago by R. Chaffey

3.0 out of 5 stars It needed a different reader
The story is great. I love Agatha Christie and Hercule and have many of the audiobooks on CDs and cassettes, but I was disappointed with the reader on this one. Read more

Published 11 months ago by V. Hanna

5.0 out of 5 stars Mesopotamian Madness
I read this book when I was just a boy, barely old enough to speak the word "Mesopotamia." In retrospect, I wonder why American publishers carried over Christie's British title... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Kevin Killian

5.0 out of 5 stars Adventure and Murder in an Exotic Land
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... Read more

Published 17 months ago by Bobby Underwood

4.0 out of 5 stars "I always look at 'the impossible' very carefully."
Married to an archaeologist working in the Iraqi desert, author Agatha Christie knew the Baghdad area well and was familiar with the procedures which archaeologists follow in... Read more

Published 19 months ago by Mary Whipple

5.0 out of 5 stars Poirot waits and pounces like a panther
Hercule Poirot is passing through Iraq just after a murder has been committed. Our suave hero interviews the suspects, surveys the environs, parries and thrusts here and there to... Read more

Published 22 months ago by DONALD G. FOX

5.0 out of 5 stars Near Perfect
I've recently reread Agatha Christie's "Murder in Mesopotamia". This is one of her best. Even knowing the solution I still enjoy the narrative and watching how she lays out the... Read more

Published on August 23, 2007 by C. Schaub

3.0 out of 5 stars Bad narration almost spoiled this one for me
I love Agatha Christie and I really like this particular story. It's a lot of fun seeing Hercule Poirot from the perspective of a totally different person, the nurse, Amy... Read more

Published on August 28, 2006 by CMBohn

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