An unusual atmosphere of tension pervades the isolated Hassanieh dig in Iraq, centred around the wife of the celebrated archaeologist leading the dig - her nervous terror seems unfounded until a murder is committed…

This was everything I want from a Christie, and it is easily one of my favourites so far in my little reading project. I didn’t guess whodunnit, why or how (not even close), but the denouement was very clever and made complete sense.

I particularly loved that Christie clearly used her own time spent on archaeological digs in the Middle East to inform this one - from the setting to the way a dig works. The characters and their attitudes were gold (I very much suspect Christie is deliberately poking fun at certain types of Brits abroad and other national stereotypes, which just makes some of these characters particularly splendid).

A cleverly-written murder mystery with a rich setting and keenly-observed characters, which kept me guessing right until the end.