Victoria Jones gets sacked from her shorthand secretary job, both for mocking the boss behind his back and for being rubbish at shorthand and typing, then she goes to the park for a life-contemplative lunch, meets a cute dude, learns he's headed to Baghdad the next day, then decides to chase after him. This not-at-all-stupid decision lands her in a foreign country with no money, no job, no prospects, and the difficult tasks of finding a man when she only knows his first name. I mean, honestly. And then she gets pulled into some serious international intrigue, gets herself kidnapped, and plays a significant role in helping to take down the Big Bad Men.

A different Christie plot than I'm used to, but still fairly fun. I think I prefer a simple locked room murder, though. ( )

Victoria Jones decides to go to Baghdad in pursuit of a young man but finds herself caught up amongst intelligence agents trying to foil a shadowy organisation that wants to stoke tensions between the US and the USSR.

I enjoyed this more than most of the author's forays into spy fiction. ( )

This was an Agatha Christie novel I had never heard of, so I picked it up thinking it would be on the order of Murder on the Orient Express. How wrong I was! Instead it is an oddly political (and colonial) book about a international conference being held in Baghdad and the efforts of a shadowy organization to disrupt its objectives.

The plot is muddled and the character that is supposed to be the3 heroine is a nit wit. Really not her best effort. ( )

Dedicated to "All My Friends in Baghdad", this story is based around an impending meeting, taking place after World War II, of the superpowers America and Russia. It gave the author an opportunity to vaunt her knowledge of archaeology and of Islamic/Arabic culture.

I first reviewed it on this blog ten years ago. I am re-reading it with my U3A Agatha Christie group, and it will be our last book for this year.

I was surprised to find that it really had so many connections to PASSENGER TO FRANKFURT which we read recently and which was published 20 years later.

Among them are

a nefarious organisation siphoning of funds to use for evil purposes
the disappearance of talented young from all walks of life (also raised in DESTINATION UNKNOWN) and their dedication to "making the world a better place"
the conflict between ideologies
the possibility of World War III
the cult of the young Siegfried
the idea that World War II concluded unsatisfactorily and really left more problems than it solved.

Things I have found out

They Came to Baghdad was first published in the UK in eight abridged instalments in John Bull magazine from January to March 1951, and in Canada, in an abridged version in Star Weekly Complete Novel, a magazine supplement published in Toronto, in September 1951.
the full version was then published in March 1951 by the Collins Crime Club
Victoria, the heroine/detective, never appears in another Agatha Christie novel ( )

After having read many Agatha Christie mysteries, I had held off reading some of her espionage and spy thrillers. I picked it up because of a bookclub, and I’m glad I gave it a try. It’s certainly a departure from her usual mysteries, but it has a delightful heroine at the center of the tale by the name of Victoria Jones. She’s a bit reckless, flighty, and romantic, but with all her flaws, the reader is still throughly engaged throughout to see if she’ll survive this adventure she put herself in. A fun and thrilling little adventure that I enjoyed. ( )