For the #1936Club: Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

In Murder in Mesopotamia, the wife of an acclaimed archaeologist accompanies him on his annual expedition to Hassanieh, a day and a half's journey from Baghdad. Louise Leidner is the nervous type; she's not sleeping; she's receiving threatening letters (or is she?), seeing faces at her window; she's scared. Nurse Leatheran - already in Iraq but about to finish her current engagement - is persuaded to become Mrs Leidner's companion for the summer. Shortly after Mrs Leidner has taken Amy Leatheran into her confidence, she is dead. 

Guess who happens to be in the area? 

No, it's not Jane Marple. 

"He lives in London, true" said Dr Reilly, "but this is where the coincidence comes in. He is now not in London but in Syria, and he will actually pass through Hassanieh on his way to Baghdad tomorrow!"

How very convenient.

Enter Hercule Poirot.

The expedition group consists of the usual collection of Christie characters, here tailored to fit the specific situation in which they are assembled. A variety of nationalities - American, Swedish, English, French and;

'the Mercados. Heaven knows what nationality they are - Dagos of some kind! She's quite young - a snaky looking character...'

For yes, as in most of Christie's books, racism, snobbery and sexism are thrown about with gay abandon. As for the local staff, they are automatically lazy, untrustworthy, and only absolved of suspicion by the plain fact that none of them could have committed the crime. But then again, as Mrs Leidner's room could only be accessed through a courtyard which no-one was seen to enter or leave at the relevant time, who could have done the deed? 

The answer, which, of course, Poirot alone can uncover (though not before another murder takes place), is one of the least plausible solutions in any Agatha Christie book that I have read.

The unrecognised face from the past is a recurrent device in Agatha Christie's novels. A child not seen for 30 years turns up with a new identity (but plenty of old venom..), a long lost cousin or nephew returns from the colonies after the only people who might have recognised him are dead.... It's one of the things I find quite annoying about Christie's plots (I know, I'm waiting for the thunderbolt to strike...) That said, Christie does more to flesh out her characters than many other 'Golden Age' writers, and it is this which makes Murder in Mesopotamia an enjoyable read.

The story is narrated by Nurse Leatheran, who has been asked by Dr Reilly to write it all down, four years after the events she describes took place. 

In his estimable The Golden Age of Murder, Martin Edwards explains that Leatheran is based on Christie herself. She is a well-drawn character - sensible, reliable, keen to do her best by her patient, but also full of typical English observations about Foreigners and Abroad. Her comments are often unintentionally amusuing; she has predictable reservations about Poirot;

Of course he was a foreigner, but I hadn't expected him to be quite as foreign as he was, if you know what I mean.

And yet she is determined to see the best in Mrs Leidner, even though everyone in the party apart from Louise's devoted husband had some sort of issue with her, and all agree that she has brought an atmosphere of tension and anxiety to an expedition that has, in previous years, been happy and relaxed. It is suggested that Mrs L plays one person (and especially one man) off against another, that she likes nothing better than to toy with people's affections, and that she is generally a Bad Thing. This means, of course, that almost all of them had a motive for doing her in. But who had the opportunity? 

Agatha Christie married her second husband, Max Mallowan, in 1930. He was an archaeologist whom she had met in Iraq. After their marriage Christie was more than happy to accompany him on many of his expeditions.  Murder in Mesopotamia reflects her familiarity with this special world, the details of the work of each member of the party, and the daily routine of the dig, all of which bring the locations to life.  

Martin Edwards also explains that the character of Louise Leidner is based on Katharine Woolley, the domineering and unpleasant wife of another archaeologist. Mrs Woolley had been horrible to her when she married Mallowan, while another, much more sympathetic, character, David Emmott, represents Mallowan himself.

Ultimately, I was not convinced by the denoument of this mystery. It was not only the solution itself that failed to satisfy, but also the vague way in which the character of the late Louise Leidner was denigrated by the comments of others. Christie clearly wanted her to come across as a monster (sweet revenge on Katharine Woolley), but I didn't feel I knew her any better at the end of the book than the beginning.  By contrast, some of the supporting cast felt real; I could picture gruff Englishwoman Miss Johnson, the doctor's outspoken daughter Sheila, and chatty Mr Coleman..

And although one tends to think that Christie, in her attitudes to race and class, is simply reflecting the mores of the day, I am also currently reading Winifred Holtby's South Riding, also published in 1936, which takes a long hard look at issues of poverty, prejudice and feminism. Not everyone shared Miss Christie's cliched views, and dressing them up in glamourous ITV productions should not really make them any more acceptable to us today.

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie was originally published in 1936 by Collins Crime Club. It was most recently republished in 2016 by Harper Collins.

The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards is published by Harper Collins.