They Came to Baghdad

They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“There must be an end of all the savagery in the world, the wars, the misunderstandings, the suspicions. A common meeting ground, that’s what we all need. Drama, art, poetry—the great things of the spirit—no room there for petty jealousies or hatreds.”
“N-no,” said Victoria doubtfully, recalling friends of hers who were actresses and artists and whose lives seemed to be obsessed by jealousy of the most trivial kind, and by hatreds of a peculiarly virulent intensity.

There’s normally a healthy dose of humour to most of Ms Christie’s books, but this time I laughed and laughed! The intrepid heroine, Victoria Jones, is a thinly disguised young Agatha, getting herself into and out of all sorts of scrapes in the exotic city of Baghdad and nearby archaeological digs. There even seems to be a veiled reference at the very end of chapter nineteen to Ms Christie’s own disappearance twenty-five years earlier:

“Reminds me—now what does it remind me of?—ah! Yes, Elizabeth Canning, of course. You remember she turned up with a most impossible story after being missing a fortnight. Very interesting conflict of evidence—about some gipsies, if it’s the right case I’m thinking of. And she was such a plain girl, it didn’t seem likely there could be a man in the case.”

See? Laugh and laugh! Sometimes as vivid as a travelogue this thriller fairly gallops along. I’d read it once before, but had forgotten just how good it is.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know! Read (or rather re-read) for the currently-on-pause Goodreads’ Agatha Christie Reading Group—and thoroughly enjoyed!


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