I think this novel could also have been called "They Came to Baghdad on the Orient Express".
Newly divorced from her husband Archie, Agatha Christie boards the Orient Express in disguise. She hopes to escape the lingering scandal from her disappearance in 1928 and avoid London when ex-husband Archie remarries. On board the Orient Express she meets the enigmatic Katherine Keeling. Katherine's first husband committed suicide under unusual circumstances only six months after their wedding. Katherine works on the archaeological digs in Ur. She is soon to marry the head of the digs, Leonard Woolley. Agatha also befriends Nancy Nelson, who has just married but is pregnant with another man's child.
As the train heads east, Agatha, Katherine, and Nancy begin to share secrets and unravel the mysteries surrounding their individual journeys. They form a friendship and their lives become forever intertwined. In the words of Hercule Poirot, they must learn to trust the train, for it is Le Bon Dieu who drives it.
I enjoyed this fictional account of part of Agatha Christie's life. Agatha Christie really did travel on the Orient Express in the fall of 1928, immediately following her divorce. Two years prior (1926), she disappeared for 10 days when Archie announced he loved another woman. She met Katherine Woolley when she visited the dig at Ur in 1928. A few years later she met her future husband Max. The character of Nancy is based loosely on Archie's second wife.
The inspiration for several of Christie's novel can be found within Ashford's narrative. Katherine Woolley is said to be the inspiration for Mrs. Leidner in Murder in Mesopotamia. Agatha (the character) takes notes for a novel she will write about a murder on the Orient Express. Ashford was also inspired by The Mystery of the Blue Train and They Came to Baghdad.
I think July will be a slow month for posts; I have two other books I want to finish with about 600 pages to read between the two.
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