Agatha Christie Portal - Books & Reviews

Monday, November 20, 2006

Murder in Mesopotamia -by Agatha Christie


Mrs. Leidner was afraid of being killed. But none believe her. Her husband, renowned archeologist Dr. Leidner consulted with Dr. Giles Reilly about her wife's fear. Dr. Reilly arranged nurse Amy Leatheran to be a companion of Mrs. Leidner in Mesopotamia.

But Mrs. Leidner had good reason to be afraid because she was murdered.

M. Poirot will solve the case.

"Agatha Christie a racist?"

Some people consider that Agatha Christie was a racist.

If one reads all her works carefully it might be perceived of having a hint of racism about it, such as her famous novel "And Then There Were None", the novel was previously called "Ten Little Niggers". The book was written in 1939 and was based on a poem written in 1868. And there is completely nothing racist in the novel, there are no real Afro-Americans in the novel, it is only a reference to a famous rhyme just is much as in her other books.

In war time Britain, it was natural to think of all foreigners as 'rather suspect' . And Agatha's books reflected that reality. So many of the characters in her books perhaps being of foreign origin would be naturally treated with less than proper respect. She knew that English people treated foreigners with some disrespect and thus purposefully made her famous detective M. Hercule Poirot, a Belgian, with a superiror intelligence.

According to some people if there was anything, it would be a class prejudice more than racism in A. C.'s novels. Valets and Maids were treated as inferior beings by their masters or mistresses. This was also derived from real life. Whatever be the case, her novels give a wonderful description of the 20th century. I think that there was neither class prejudice nor racism in her mind - and her books simple depicted prevalent trends of the time, when these books were written.