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Just finished "Murder in Mesopotamia", by Agatha Christie. This was her 26th novel, originally published in 1936. This novel is written as a "flashback" to events which took place 4 years previously at an archaeological dig in Iraq. Poirot investigates a mysterious murder that takes place within the excavation team.
The events in this novel form the reason that Poirot was travelling home from Syria by train in "Murder on the Orient Express".
Christie married the archaeologist Max Mallowan (later Sir Max Mallowan) in 1930, and it was her experiences accompanying him on archaeaological digs in Iraq (and other places in the Middle East) that gave her the background to write this and other novels set in that part of the world. As such, it has a very authentic atmosphere. Highly recommended.
On now to "Kingdom By the Sea" by Paul Theroux, a travelogue describing Theroux's travels around the coast of Britain. Always interesting to read a foreigner's impressions of one's own country, and Theroux is an excellent travel writer.
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