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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After the Funeral

After the Funeral by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“You—er—acted as companion and also did the—er—well—looked after the house?”
It was evident that he had touched on a delicate subject. Miss Gilchrist flushed a little.
“Oh yes, indeed. I did most of the cooking—I quite enjoy cooking—and did some dusting and light housework. None of the rough, of course.” Miss Gilchrist’s tone expressed a firm principle. Mr. Entwhistle who had no idea what “the rough” was, made a soothing murmur.
“Mrs Patner from the village came in for that. Twice a week regularly. You see, Mr. Entwhistle, I could not have contemplated being in any way a servant. When my little teashop failed—such a disaster—it was the war, you know…”

The Second World War has taken its toll on everyone, the genteel Miss Gilchrist included. The ageing but sharp-as-a-button lawyer Mr Entwhistle recognizes the type: “a composite picture of hundreds of ladylike figures approaching him in numerous Bay Trees, Ginger Cats, Blue Parrots…all chastely encased in blue or pink…and taking orders for pots of china tea and cakes.”
One of the things that struck me on re-reading this much loved Poirot (as you can see, not only is the cover missing, the bottom couple of lines have been ripped from the first seventeen pages by happy young canine teeth) was that many of the cozy mystery writers of today go to great lengths to recreate a sense of past, whereas Ms Christie grounds her novels in her own time—whilst using contemporary issues that her readers would already be quite familiar with. As a consequence she needs to say very little to define her characters and convey her setting—yet how well she adoes it nonetheless!
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know! Read (or rather re-read) for the Goodreads’ Agatha Christie Reading Group—and enjoyed once again!

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Sparkling Cyanide

Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Because there’s someone there who twitters—twitters like a little bird.…A little bird told me—was a saying of my youth. It’s very true, Kemp—these twitterers can tell one a lot if one just lets them—twitter!”

At the point I write this, this final appearance from Colonel Race has been around for 72 years. It’s hard to read such old text with 21st Century eyes and not chuckle at the unintentional meanings that have crept into the language—or frown at the racial and misogynistic slurrings that would not be acceptable today. The character of Colonel Race is becoming ever more out of touch with modern ears; the veneer of his charm is wearing thin. For example, here’s what he says about Christine Shannon, a minor character who proves herself to be an excellent witness, whom, with little or no justification, he considers to be an airhead:

“If he’d put anything into Barton’s glass, that girl would have seen him. She’s a born observer of detail. Nothing to think about inside her head and so she uses her eyes.”

Luckily the bulk of the story is carried on the shoulders of others—including the neat bit of detection at the end—and the writing rates among Ms Christie’s finest. Critics such as Charles Osborne (The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie) have questioned how credible the handbag-and-table device is. Personally I cannot help but admire the beauty of its logic. I’m appreciative too of that faint whiff of a haunting, something that Ms Christie, either in mockery or in earnest, does so incredibly well.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know! Read (or rather re-read) for the Goodreads’ Agatha Christie Reading Group—and thoroughly enjoyed!


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Mrs. McGinty's Dead

Mrs. McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mrs. Oliver cast a glance over the Penguin display. It was slightly overlaid by children’s waders.
“The Affair of the Second Goldfish,” she mused, “that’s quite a good one. The Cat it was Who Died—that’s where I made a blowpipe a foot long and it’s really six feet. Ridiculous that a blowpipe should be that size, but someone wrote from a museum to tell me so. Sometimes I think there are people who only read books in the hope of finding mistakes in them. What’s the other one of them? Oh! Death of a Débutante—that’s frightful tripe! I made sulphonal soluble in water and it isn’t, and the whole thing is wildly impossible from start to finish. At least eight people die before Sven Hjerson gets his brainwave.”

Ms Christie’s alter ego Ariadne Oliver is in fine comic form in this one, bemoaning the lot of the mystery writer. As for The Cat it was Who Died—surely that’s Death in the Clouds, don’t you think? It’s interesting to speculate if the museum in question was actually the British Museum.
A truly delightful mid-period Christie with surprises right to the very end.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know! Read (or rather re-read) for the Goodreads’ Agatha Christie Reading Group.


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Death Comes as the End

Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“She was not a servant…She had a wig on her head and she wore jewels—a servant does not wear jewels.”
“Jewels?” demanded Imhotep. “What jewels?”
The boy replied eagerly and confidently as though at last he had overcome his fear and was quite sure of what he was saying.
“Three strings of beads with gold lions hanging from them in front…”
Esa’s stick clattered to the floor. Imhotep uttered a stifled cry.

It’s Ancient Egypt, the end of the First Intermediate Period and beginning of the Middle Kingdom, when the Egyptian capital transfers to present-day Karnak—the city that, under the later Greeks, will eventually become known as Thebes. When ageing ka-priest Imhotep returns from the north with a beautiful young concubine, his extended family are none too pleased. After she dies in an apparent accident, is it her revengeful spirit that returns to bump the family off one by one?

Each of the characters is well defined as a particular “type” (e.g. knowledgeable old grandmother, elder son’s nagging wife, middle son who’s a bit of a gambler), and yet with few exceptions they are all quite sketchily painted, even by Ms Christie’s economical standards. Too sketchily perhaps for us to engage with them fully? I’m a great fan of Ms Christie, but even on re-reading this remains one my least favourite of her works. Still pleased I had a reason to read it again, though, for I don’t think my copy will last another outing!
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know!

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Taken at the Flood

Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“My word, laundry’s a problem nowadays. Four ruddy weeks since they’ve been to our place—not a clean towel left in our house, and my wife washes all my things herself now.”

So laments Superintendent Spence about the privations suffered in post-war Britain in this tightly-plotted Poirot novel from 1948. And he’s not the only one to suffer. Aunt Kathy, the scatty spiritualist wife of Dr Lionel Cloade, queues for hours for a “depressed-looking bit of cod” and a tin of golden syrup, which, having fought for, she promptly drops in the street. Poirot, ever the gentleman, retrieves the cod and runs after tin for her.
Highly enjoyable, and with a truly novel premise, this book sounds the death-knell for weekend house parties in the country, summers on the Riviera, and sumptuous first-class train travel to ever more exotic climes. From here on in it’s all council housing estates encroaching on St Mary Mead and gardens falling into disrepair because one cannot get the staff. Not that I’m complaining.
BTW, two things that may not be immediately obvious to current readers, but were as plain as day to contemporary ones:
1) When Superintendent Spence talks about his wife washing his things, he means by hand. Poor her; lucky him. I hope he appreciates it.
2) As much as I adore cod, it seems to have been the only fish in general supply throughout the war, to the point where it became thought of as unwelcome, repetitive fare.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know!

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Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“It’s as though we’d walked on to the stage in the middle of the second act and we haven’t really got parts in the play at all, but we have to pretend, and what makes it so frightfully hard is that we haven’t the faintest idea what the first act was about.”
Frankie nodded eagerly.
“I’m not even so sure it’s the second act—I think it’s more like the third. Bobby, I’m sure we’ve got to go back a long way…And we’ve got to be quick because I fancy the play is frightfully near the final curtain.”
“With corpses strewn everywhere,” said Bobby. “And what brought us into the show was a regular cue—five words—quite meaningless as far as we are concerned.”
“Why didn’t they ask Evans?”

This is one of Ms Christie’s attractive thrillers that feature a pair of amateur sleuths (with no sign of Miss Marple or Monsieur Poirot lurking in the background). In this case it’s the happy-go-lucky Bobby, the fourth son of a country vicar, and the thoroughly modern Lady Frances, better known to her friends as Frankie. The plot, which is generously seasoned with all manner of thrilling devices, could well have served as a template for all of Francis Durbridge’s Paul Temple mysteries. There’s (and trust me, there are no spoilers here, just teasers) the enigmatic words on the dying man’s lips, the business—in the theatrical sense of the word—with the photograph used to identify the body, the mysterious foreign doctor in his high-walled clinic situated in some out-of-the-way spot in the countryside, and a gang that’s apparently trafficking in morphine. Then there’s the staged accident to gain ingress to a house, the more-than-a-faint-whiff of The Woman in White about the mysterious Moira Nicholson, and the casual mention-or-two of a possible suicide by a seemingly neurotic millionaire. It was so good to read this again.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know! Read for the Agatha Christie Reading Group at Goodreads. A perfect cozy for #MysteryWeek

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