Mystery Review: Murder in Mesopotamia is enlivened by an international setting and a new, first-person narrator: the companion nurse to an archaeologist's wife (so no Hastings). Christie herself was a nurse and our heroine soon ably partners with Poirot in solving the mystery at the site. The characters are unusually layered, the exotic locale is vividly described, and the red herrings come fast and furious. Murder in Mesopotamia proceeds with Christie-like efficiency and tension until the conclusion which, unfortunately, is just too implausible to satisfy the demanding reader. I've been reading the Poirot novels generally in order, but there seems to be little reason to do so as each seems to be mostly independent, with slight relation to the other stories or any kind of chronology. In the earlier books he seemed alternately older and younger, either preparing for his retirement or leaping into trees. I mention this because in Murder in Mesopotamia other of Poirot's cases are mentioned which provided an amiable continuity. [3½★]
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