![]() ![]() Only a hair breadth’s separates me from death.’ Though to be fair to them they were nearly 100 years old! At times Stern finds that Christie is used as a marketing ploy, whilst in another instance when interviewing former dig workers, it seems little interest is maintained, with one interviewee saying that ‘I am not interested in any of that now. ![]() However, Tom Stern’s chapter was more fascinating, as Stern looks at how the Middle East Christie writes about in her biographical work, Come Tell Me How You Live, has changed since. It was interesting to read in Axel Heimsoth’s chapter on Christie’s travels of Christie’s Shelden Cooper like appreciation of trains. Though readers may be less envious of the bathroom facilities and the daily experience of finding frogs and fish in the hip baths they used! Agatha Christie working at the Nimrud Digīefore moving onto the travelling aspect of archaeology, there is a brief chapter on the photography and filming Christie did whilst on the excavation sites, again written by Trumpler. The fact Oates actually met both Christie and her husband, as a research student in the 1950s helps this approach and I can imagine many readers are quite envious when they read how Oates went on shopping expeditions with Christie. This more personal approach continues in the next chapter by Joan Oates who writes about Christie, Nimrud and Baghdad. We also get to see more of what Christie thought of life on a dig, including the fashion and household difficulties she faced. This chapter by Charlotte Trumpler was very interesting as she includes many entertaining anecdotes, linking these real life experiences to events in Christie’s stories. Thankfully the book does pick up again when the next topic focused on is life on an archaeological site in the 1930s. The best of these chapters was by John Curtis who writes about the Nimrud excavation, as the role Christie played in this one is talked about more, (using her own face cream to clean delicate ivories for instance), and the difficulties of writing on a dig are also mentioned. Christie and Mallowan weren’t really mentioned all that much and the technical information would only interest someone who knew a fair bit about archaeology. Though there was the occasional interesting titbit of information, these chapters were incredibly and painfully boring. The book then changes direction with a number of chapters covering all the excavations Mallowan and Christie were on. They weren’t actually arrested for anything.) Most of this information will probably be familiar to keen Christie fans, but I was glad to learn a few new things, such as Christie’s love of algebra and to read about the courtship between her and Max – impromptu bathing and a night in a police cell included! (N.B. ![]() The first two chapters, written by Janet Morgan and Henrietta McCall respectively, provide a succinct biography for Christie and Mallowan. ![]() I was intrigued by the topic of this collection of essays: namely Agatha Christie, her husband Max Mallowan, Detective Fiction and Archaeology and the cross overs between them all. ![]()
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