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A quick read today: just finished "They Came to Baghdad" by Agatha Christie. This was her 51st book, and was originally published in 1951.
Christie is of course best known as a writer of detective fiction, but she also wrote thrillers, and this is one of the best of them. Christie's thrillers generally feature independently-minded young women (perhaps the way Christie imagined herself?) who stumble across international conspiracies to overthrow governments (or, in this case, the entire world order). Wildly improbable plots, but terrific fun to read.
In this book, Victoria Jones, a very bad shorthand typist who's just been sacked from her latest job, meets an attractive young man in London, who tells her that he's about to set off for a job in Baghdad, and decides to follow him there for the adventure of it. She soon becomes tangled up in a plot involving secret agents, and an international conference that's about to be held in the city, at which a shadowy organisation is determined to sow dissension between the United States and the Soviet Union.
As I say, a wildly improbable story-line, but a terrific read. Highly recommended. The book is very atmospheric, and is of course inspired by the time that Christie herself spent in Iraq with her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan.
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