Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie
]Christie must have been getting a little bored with her formula. This is a Poirot book, no doubt, but it’s written by Amy Leatheran, a nurse hired by one of the protagonists, Dr. Leidner, to attend to his wife, Louise. Poirot doesn’t show up until halfway through the book (as he’s still traveling in Syria after Appointment with Death). But they change in the tone of this book makes it interesting. Here we again get to see Poirot through the eyes of an outsider, unfamiliar with him in any way. Many of the others are either Poirot’s Watsons (in the form of Captain Hastings), sycophants, or some other kind of acquaintance. Indeed, this hearkens back a bit to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in a way in that the author is involved in the murder, and not as an outside investigator.
Anyway, this is a “locked room” murder. Windows and doors closed, people milling about so that no one could have entered. How was it done, by whom, and why?
Quite good.
And it’s telegraphed that he travels home via that Orient Express.
