Murder in Mesopotamia

Mrs Leidner has been receiving threatening letters, and she tells Poirot so over dinner. He is on holiday in Iraq when the wife of the head scientist at an archaeological dig confides her fear, and he and Hastings travel out to the site headquarters out of politeness as much as curiosity. The letters threaten her safety directly, and she has reached the point of asking a stranger for help. They arrive to find that an Arab worker has been strangled. So much for the holiday.

But the dig is a closed little world. Dr Leidner runs the science and his wife runs the household, with a ring of companions and hangers-on keeping the camp alive: Anne Johnson, Amy Leatheran, Bill Coleman, Sheila Maitland, Father Lavigny and Richard Carey. Everyone has a reason to be there, and everyone keeps a face for company. The camp is small enough that everyone knows everyone's business, which is exactly the kind of ground Poirot works best on. Poirot's slow sifting of the dust and the gossip is the whole show, with Hastings on hand to ask the questions the rest of us would ask.

Agatha Christie wrote the story with Clive Exton, and Tom Clegg directed. David Suchet is Poirot and Hugh Fraser is Hastings. Ron Berglas plays Dr Leidner, Barbara Barnes is Mrs Leidner, with Dinah Stabb as Anne Johnson, Georgina Sowerby as Amy Leatheran, Jeremy Turner-Welch as Bill Coleman, Pandora Clifford as Sheila Maitland, Christopher Hunter as Father Lavigny and Christopher Bowen as Richard Carey.

Christie knew these digs from the inside. Her second husband was an archaeologist, and she spent seasons at his excavations, and it shows in the heat and the hierarchy, and in the way a murder lands in the middle of people who would rather be looking at pots. The episode treats the archaeology with respect and the people with suspicion, which is the right balance for a Christie. Even on holiday, order has to be restored, and Poirot is the one to do it.