Murder in Mesopotamia
Murder in Mesopotamia (original title Murder in Mesopotamia ) is the 19th detective novel by Agatha Christie . It first appeared in the UK on July 6, 1936 at the Collins Crime Club and in the US at Dodd, Mead and Company later that year. The German first edition was published in 1939 by Ibach Verlag (Leipzig, Vienna) under the title A woman in danger in the translation by Auguste Flesch-Brunningen. In 1954 Scherz-Verlag published the novel under the title in the translation by Lola Humm-Sernau. The new translation by Michael Mundhenk used today was published by Atlantik Verlag in 2018 .
Hercule Poirot is investigating .
The novel takes place at an archaeological dig site in Iraq . The author gained this experience during her stays at the excavation sites in Ur , together with her husband Max Mallowan . The murder victim Mrs. Leidner is modeled after Katharine Woolley , the wife of the superior Mallowan in Ur, Leonard Woolley .
action
Dr. Eric Leidner is a Swedish-American archaeologist who is on an excavation in Iraq, which at the time of the act is under British protectorate . His wife, Louise, was their first marriage to Frederick Bosner, a young man who worked for the US State Department. Bosner was sentenced to death as a German spy during the First World War. He managed to escape during a transport. He was later identified as one of the victims of a train wreck.
Amy Leatheran is a nurse who accompanied a patient to Iraq and now actually wants to travel home. She meets Dr. Leidner, who hires her to look after his wife. Mrs. Leidner needs care because she sees ghostly apparitions outside her window and also claims to have received threatening letters from her late husband.
Then Mrs. Leidner is found dead in her room by her husband, hit in the head by a large blunt object. Hercule Poirot, who is also visiting Iraq, is asked to solve the riddle.
Poirot questions everyone unofficially and employs Amy Leatheran as his assistant. There is a lot of speculation that suggests that Frederick Bosner's younger brother, William, might be among the expedition members or that her husband survived the train wreck. Then Dr. Leidner's longtime secretary murdered. But before she dies, she calls out: “The window, the window!” And that is the last important piece of information that Poirot needs to solve the case.
It turns out that Mrs. Leidner and Miss Johnson were told by Dr. Leidner, who is actually Frederick Bosner. He had survived the train accident and exchanged identity with one of the victims, who was led by Dr. Leidner. Fifteen years later, he remarried his wife, who did not recognize him.
At first glance, it seems impossible that Leidner murdered his wife, since he was standing on the roof of the house the whole time. But with the help of a mask he had lured his wife to the window of her room and then killed her with a millstone. He killed her because he loved her but she gave herself to Richard Carey. Miss Johnson accidentally found out how Leidner could have murdered his wife and died as a result.
Father Lavigny is also exposed as Raoul Menier, a French thief who, masked as a monk, stole valuable finds and replaced them with perfect copies.
people
- Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian detective
- Professor Dr. Eric Leidner, archaeologist and head of the excavations
- Louise Leidner, his wife
- Bill Coleman, assistant to Professor Leidner
- David Emmott, assistant to Professor Leidner
- Richard Carey, architect
- Anne Johnson, Secretary to Professor Leidner
- Father Lavigny, an inscriber
- Amy Leatheran, a nurse
- Captain Maitland, Chief of the Hassanieh Police Department
- Joseph Mercado, assistant to Professor Leidner
- Marie Mercado, his wife
- Dr. Giles Reilly, doctor
- Sheila Reilly, daughter of the doctor
- Carl Reiter, photographer of the expedition
Reviews
The Times Literary Supplement of July 18, 1936, in its review of Harry Pirie-Gordon, sums up the plot and concludes: “The plot is really brilliant and the first murder really cleverly constructed. But there are still doubts as to whether Ms. Leidner really would have behaved as described. "
In The New York Times Book Review of September 20, 1936, Kay Irvin says, “Agatha Christie is a master, as everyone knows, of presenting a collection of unrelated clues. There are secrets after secrets in this calm but strangely moving group of scientists. And one of them has to be the killer. It is part of the author's ability that we discover something mysterious in everyone, really everyone, and consider everyone suspicious. This new work from Christie is a coherent and very original story. "
Relationships with other works
- Although the novel was published in 1936, it describes events that happened three years earlier. Because to return from the Orient Poirot takes the Orient Express and settles his most famous case - the murder on the Orient Express .
- When Amy Leatheran is asked how she spent the afternoon, she replies that she's famous novel Murder at the clinic by Ngaio Marsh 've read.
Film adaptations
Agatha Christie's Poirot
In 2001 the novel was filmed for the 8th season as the 2nd episode of the British television series Agatha Christie's Poirot with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot . The role of Captain Hastings has been added to the story, although he does not appear in the novel. For this, the role of Amy Leatheran was shortened.
Audio books
- 2003 Murder in Mesopotamia (3 CDs). Abridged version by Neville Teller . Translated from the English by Barbara Christ . Read by Celine Fontanges . Director: Sven Stricker . The Hörverlag , Munich
Web links
- Murder in Mesopotamia on the official Agatha Christie website
- (2001) Murder in Mesopotamia in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Observer July 5, 1936 (Page 6)
- ↑ John Cooper and BA Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide : Second Edition (Pages 82 and 86) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ^ German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ New translation in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ The Times Literary Supplement July 18, 1936 (Page 599)
- ↑ The New York Times Book Review September 20, 1936 (Page 24)
- ^ Audiobook (licensed) in the catalog of the German National Library