Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie
I read numerous Agatha Christie mysteries while growing up. Back then they were sort of transitional books. When the books in the library's children's department started to feel too childish Christie's mysteries were for many the first adults' books they read. Christie's mysteries are also useful when as a non-native speaker one wants to start reading books in English. So, I first moved towards adults' books with Christie and then again moved onwards towards reading books in English by reading her mysteries. By the way, reading Christie in other languages works, too. :) The first and only novel I've ever read in Italian was a Christie mystery.
It has, however, been a long while since I read anything by Christie. When choosing themes for The One, Two, Theme Challenge, I ended up choosing Mesopotamia as one of my themes. As we are supposed to read both non-fiction and fiction, Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia immediately came to my mind as a possible fiction choice. I'm not quite sure whether had I read it before, I think I had. I had seen it on TV, though, as part of the wonderful Hercule Poirot series starring the brilliant David Suchet. I had never before reread a traditional mystery (I don't really count The Woman in White as a typical mystery). Even though I was not hundred procent sure if I had read this one before, I did remember parts of the story and I had always thought that as a hindrance for really enjoying rereading a mystery. I was willing to give this book a chance, though.
I was not dissapointed. Murder in Mesopotamia is set in 1930s Iraq. Something is not quite right at an archeological dig in Hassanieh, and when the worst happens Hercule Poirot, who is travelling in the area, is asked to investigate. In this book the narrator was not Captain Hastings, but Amy Leatheran, a nurse appointed to take care of Mrs. Leidner, the wife of the archeologist heading the excavations in Hassanieh. I'm a great fan of Poirot. He's my absolutely favorite private detective, and I enjoyed Nurse Leatheran's comments on the little Belgian a lot. :)
Reading Murder in Mesopotamia put me in the mood for more Christie and especially more Poirot stories. It would be great fun to read all Poirot's cases in chronological order, but that might be a bit too great a challenge to incorporate into all my other reading. I might read some more Poirot stories this year, though. And I have another Agatha Christie mystery (sans Poirot) for The One, Two, Theme Challenge, namely They Came to Baghdad, waiting for it's turn.
This was my first read for my Mesopotamia theme in The One, Two, Theme Challenge.
Grand Slam by Samantha Brenner
Unfortunately this supposedly satirical lesbian romance set in the world of professional tennis has been my most dissapointing read this year. The story follows former corporate lawyer Stephanie Alexander during her year of being the girlfriend of first one and then another professional tennis player. I love tennis and I am an enthusiastic follower of especially women's professional tennis, and so, I was pretty excited to find a novel set in that world. However, this book did not live up to my expectations at all. The narrative was in parts incoherent and would have needed quite a bit more editing and the satire was mostly lost on me. For example Stephanie's thoughts on her first tennis player girlfriend Sydney Foster were often so mean that I started feeling sorry for Sydney and that surely was not the effect the writer was aiming for. All in all a huge dissapointment. :(
I read Grand Slam for The GLBT Challenge.
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