Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

"Agatha Christie is just there in the culture. If you grew up in this country, you can’t avoid her. It’s always been there. It’s there on television, although I don’t really love watching adaptations of any of these books. At some point in my life, I bought a whole bunch of Poirots. There are more than 30 of them. I just started reading them. A lot of people love the later Christie, I like the early ones. This one is from 1936. It’s set at an archaeological dig. There’s a plan of the dig and where everyone’s rooms are. I don’t want to ruin it for anybody, but it’s quite a neat solution. It’s a good problem-solving one. In fact, the third book in my series (I’ve just written the first draft) is set in an archaeological dig, in a very mild tribute to this book. It’s a good setting. It’s a finite group of people who are suspects. I like the way it’s written. Her framing devices are really good—there’s not just a straightforward narrator. I love Hercule Poirot more than Miss Marple. I think Poirot is a more interesting figure. And I do have a fondness for the dramatic resolution. The ‘I’ve gathered you all in the room together and this is when I point the finger at the person who did it.’ The neatness of it is really appealing. Yes, she really did love archaeology. She even wrote a book about it . Again, this book comes with a bit of a warning. Some of the people—the natives, as she would call them—aren’t necessarily rendered brilliantly sympathetically. You have to be conscious of that. I find with Agatha Christie in particular they’re all blurred in my head. I’ve probably read Murder in Mesopotamia three times in the last five years. I’ll probably read it again in another couple of years’ time. I just about remember the conceit of how the murderer does it, but I’ll have forgotten that in a year’s time."