Murder in Mesopotamia is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 July 1936[1] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year.

The novel is set at an archaeological excavation in Iraq, and descriptive details derive from the author's visit to the Royal Cemetery at Ur where she met her husband, Sir Max Mallowan, and other British archaeologists.

Nurse Amy Leatheran arrives at an archaeological dig near Hassanieh, Iraq, to assist the Swedish-American archaeologist, Dr Eric Leidner, in caring for his seemingly-neurotic wife, Louise.

Fifteen years ago, during the Great War, Bosner was arrested for being a spy within the US State Department, and sentenced to death; he escaped custody, but died later in a train crash.

Louise reveals that she received death threats claiming to be from Frederick, whenever she was attracted to another man; these stopped when she married Leidner three years ago, until recently.

When Poirot arrives, he notes that the bedroom has only one point of entry, that the only window in the room was shut and barred, and that a rug near a washstand has blood on it.

Poirot takes an interest in the story Louise told Nurse Leatheran about her first husband; he wonders if Bosner, or possibly his much-younger brother William (presumably still living but whereabouts unknown) is somehow among the team.

Furthermore, three younger men – dig assistants Bill Coleman and David Emmott, and photographer Carl Reiter – are the right age to be William.

After spending a day sending telegrams, Poirot brings everyone together and reveals that both women were murdered by Dr Eric Leidner, who is, in reality, Frederick Bosner.

The real Leidner died in the train crash 15 years ago – when Bosner came across his body and found his face disfigured, he switched their identities to escape the authorities.

"[6] In The New York Times Book Review (20 September 1936), Kay Irvin wrote: "Agatha Christie is a past master, as every one knows, in presenting us with a full assortment of clues which we cannot read.

Agatha Christie's expertness in building up her detective stories, as such, to astonishing (though sometimes very far-fetched) conclusions has more or less over-shadowed her amazing versatility, not only in background and incident, but in character-drawing and actual style.

The trouble is that he also perplexes the unprejudiced in a way most unusual to him: I for one cannot understand why he has allowed Agatha Christie to make him party to a crime whose integrity stands or falls by a central situation which, though most ingenious, is next door to impossible.

He concluded that "usually Poirot is to be toasted in anything handy, and no heel-taps; this time I drink to him a rather sorrowful glass of Lachryma Christie.

It starred David Suchet as Hercule Poirot,[13] and was filmed on location at the Hotel Casino in Hammam Lif[14] and on the Uthina Archaeological site, both in Tunisia.