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Agatha Christie – They Came to Baghdad | Review

Title: They Came to Baghdad

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 192

Rating: 4.5/5

I liked pretty much everything about this one and so I’m super happy that I finally got to it. One of the main things that I enjoyed was actually the way that the location names captured the time it was written, including the H at the end of Basrah and the fact that London Heathrow was called Heath Row Aerodrome.

Then there’s the killer murder mystery at the heart of this, along with the kickass female lead who isn’t about to let gender norms stop her from having adventures. The result is a super fun little murder mystery with a lot going for it, and I don’t think there’d be anything wrong with it being your first Christie because it works quite nicely as a standalone.

And that’s your answer to the “would I recommend it?” question, so a little more on the why. I just think Christie’s great when she writes about other countries, which is one of the reasons why I love Death on the Nile so much.

Learn more about They Came to Baghdad.

Colin Dexter – Last Seen Wearing | Review

Title: Last Seen Wearing

Author: Colin Dexter

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 360

Rating: 8/10

Colin Dexter – Service of All the Dead

This book is another entry in Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series, and here we get to watch as the detective is assigned to a cold case. But maybe the case isn’t that cold, because some new evidence is discovered and he’s given a lead to follow up on.

But with no body, it’s difficult to prove that a murder has even occurred. It’s a tangled web of intrigue that we’re looking at here, and we get to see it through his eyes – of course, Lewis comes into it as well, and he actually provides some useful insights, although it’s ultimately Morse who does most of the investigation. But will he find the answer out too late?

One of the things that I liked about this book was that Dexter did a great job of introducing you to his world – Morse works in and around Oxford, which isn’t far from me, and I even spotted a reference to High Wycombe, which is where I live. Because of that, it makes the story somehow more enjoyable, at least for me. The characters also feel real, and even though it’s set very much amongst the generation before mine, they were also easy to relate to, in some ways.

Colin Dexter

And of course, there’s the fact that it’s easy to read this, and the pages just whizz past. I read the whole book across the space of a couple of days, and there was never a dull moment – even the initial build-up wasn’t as slow as it was in some of the other Morse books, and I felt like the motives were well-thought out and realistic, and introduced slowly, more like a dawning epiphany than a sudden slap in the face.

Overall then, I enjoyed this as much as – if not more than – the other Morse books that I’ve read, and it definitely left me wanting to read the rest of the books in the series. It’s not a bad place to start if you’re new to Dexter’s work. So go ahead – enjoy it!