They Came to Baghdad

lachy.a.w

I finished reading this recently and since I went in with fairly low expectations I quite liked this book. In my opinion it's one of Christie's solid but unremarkable books. I liked Victoria Jones' spirit for adventure and the Middle Eastern setting, but I found it somewhat easy to guess the "wrong-un" in this novel. I'd be interested to know how you would rate this book.

Tommy_A_Jones

Sometimes to get into a book to see what it is about I go on ikipaedia, Big Mistake, It ruined it for me in the first Paragraph, having said That I have read it twice, not sure If I will again, Not as bad as Passenger To Frankfurt but If I miss it out next time I won't miss it, It is O.K.I like Victoria and enjoyed it more the 2nd time but it is an average book, NotGreat but not Horrible.

MissQuin

I thought the book was ok. But I found it rather repetitive. Also it was obvious very early on who was behind it all. I could never shake off my feelings of disbelief, that a woman would go on her own half way across the world, just because of a handsome stranger! Maybe I'm too practical. 

There are some off points. Victoria is described as plain, then later on described as very pretty. What happened?!

youngmrquin

I read the book many years ago and I remembered I enjoyed it. However, when I came to the end, I had the same impression that Miss Quin: the fact that a woman would look for the way to travel to the other end of the world because of a stranger and even FIND IT it's extremely hard to believe. Furthermore

*SPOILERS*

maybe I don't remember it very well, but what stroke me as too over the top was the fact that all this was Edward's scheme!!! I mean, the man had planned to seduce her at the beginning, to make her travel to Baghdad because of him to use her. Isn't this too far fetched??? Yes, even for an AC book, where your relatives from the distant past whom you thought were all over the world turn to be your neighbours next door who want to murder you for the money you will inherit or a valious treasure you have hidden.

lachy.a.w

All very valid points, I guess there is a degree of improbability in most of Christie's books. When you put it like that youngmrquin, it does make the scheme seem quite contrived though. 

MissQuin

One of the main problems of the book was improbability. Also whenever Victoria was kidnapped or in a difficult situation, she could simply work her way out of it. It is often the way with the Agatha Christie books that get classed as "thrillers" that plots threads slot into place to easily. 

I had a similar problem with The Man In The Brown Suit. The romantic entanglements felt contrived, Anne Beddingfield seemed invincible. She was shot at and simply dodged every bullet!! For some reason characters like that really annoy me. They don't feel real. Even Poirot  and Mrs Oliver whose larger than life, have been injured.

 

youngmrquin

Yes, Miss Quin, I completely agree with your criticism. I think you, how do you say, hit the nail there.

In the defense of the Man in the Brown, I felt that the whole architecture of the plot wasn't as improbable as it was in Baghdad. Here, the villain wasn't that connected and she was plain an antagonist to his plans. Other than that, yes, sometimes she felt invincible.

This same complaint could be applied to the Beresfords, altough the development of any of their stories feels more reasonable than those of the stand-alone thrillers. Specially Tommy, who does get hurt in a couple of times.