Louise Leidner--"Lovely Louise," as she is known to the ex-pat communnity in Iraq--is a compelling woman. She is beautiful, intelligent, and confident--but she's also a quivering bundle of nerves. She hears tapping on her window, sees ghostly faces hovering outside, and receives threatening letters which may or may not be written by her supposedly dead former husband. Nurse Amy Leatheran--sensible, experienced, kind but tough, has been hired to be her companion, and acts as our narrator as well.

It's really no surprise when Louise is murdered early one afternoon. After all, this charismatic woman has been adored and reviled in equal measure--often by the same person!--by everyone on her husband's archaeological dig. All have a motive, all have the opportunity...and most have an alibi.

What's the local constabulary to do but call in Hercule Poirot, passing through on his way to Baghdad. Poirot, always up for an intriguing case, enlists Nurse as his assistant (scrub nurse to his surgeon, as she thinks of it), and together they suss out the facts. And the facts, of course, lead to a most surprising conclusion.

Thoroughly satisfying, Murder in Mesopotamia is charming, clever, and funny. A must read, particularly as M. Poirot, after his visit to Baghdad, is heading off on the Orient Express, where he will surely find himself embroiled in another baffling crime. ( )

Warning: major spoilers follow.

This story never really worked for me. As usual for a Christie, a lot of the story is tied up in the conclusion, and I suspected the villain from the start. Real-life police work tells us that the husband is one of the first suspects, and you can always dig up a motive for the husband...and once you get under all the fancy back-story that Christie stacks on, this case comes down to jealousy, one of the most common motives for spousal murder. Given that he had a motive, and no one else did, he was pretty obvious. On the other hand, and perhaps this says more about my reading style of classic mysteries, and partially my mood at the time, the fact that he had an ironclad alibi didn't mean much; Poirot has a habit of explaining away even the most ironclad of alibis, in a way I can never predict. The other characters weren't interesting and never provided good red herrings, which left me with the murderer in my sights the whole book. The world around them wasn't terribly interesting, so the book didn't work for me on any level. ( )

This is a great story, the plot was fantastic and told from the perspective of a nurse-companion! ( )

pretty good ( )

Not one of my personal favorites among the cases of Hercule Poirot, but still quite engaging.

Told from the perspective of Amy Leatheran, a nurse hired by a Dr. Eric Leidner to take care of his wife Louise at an archaeolgical excavation out in the deserts of Iraq. The nurse arrives to find that there is a somewhat strained attitude among the members of the expedition, and most of that has to do with Mrs. Leidner. However, Mrs. Leidner is murdered, and it is established that the murderer could only have come from among the group. Enter Mr. Poirot, whose work is cut out for him when it seems that each and every member of the expedition has a motive for Mrs. Leidner's death.

As I said, not one of my particular favorites, but it was still fun to see Poirot unraveling a rather twisted plot. The ending is a bit of a surprise, so it's well worth the ride.

Recommended for those who are fans of Hercule Poirot, or of Agatha Christie, or for readers of British mysteries in general. ( )