The story is narrated, written, by Amy Leatheran, four years after the conclusion, to clear what happened and put a stop to all the gossip. It's not the first time that Agatha chooses a stranger to tell her story, but this time there's a difference.
The characters are: Mrs Leidner, the beautiful woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, our first victim; Prof Leidner, the famous archeologist; Mr Mercado and his over protective wife; ugly Mr Reiter, beautiful Mr Carey, cool Mr Emmott and young Mr Coleman; Miss Johnson, as it always happens in love with the man she works for, or with, as it's usual in Christie's books, who is also our second victim; father Lavigny and of course captain Maitland, nurse Leatheran, doctor Reilly and his daughter Sheila. These are all the characters we see, and as it's usual in her books, one of them must be the murderer, but we know at least three of those names are to be excluded. Poirot considers everyone, of course, but we know that years later Dr Reilly asked nurse Leatheran to write this story, and was not at all bothered by her description of the character of his daughter: this tells us that those three people didn't kill anyone. It doesn't matter that they are also the most 'outsider' characters, since they were not part of the expedition, we know in these books that means nothing, since is has been known to happen that the murderer was a policeman or the narrator or someone barely connected.
So, innocent Amy Leatheran joins this archeological expedition to assist the professor's wife, victim of her 'fantasies': she's afraid someone might kill her, and sure enough a few days later she's found in her room with her head smashed with something heavy. What a coincidence, Poirot is in Siria, about to go to Baghdad, so they call him for help (at the end of her tale the nurse says Poirot went to Siria and the next week he was going back home on the Orient-Express when he was involved in another mystery :-p).
Poirot moes as his usual by talking to people. Some letters, threats Mrs Leidner had received, confuse things a bit. Maybe her first husband is not dead, and has come there to kill her? Maybe he's always been there with a new identity? Or maybe it's his younger brother? Or maybe those letters were all fake, just a bad joke or a call for attention? I didn't have a clue because honestly those letters bored me a lot; my guess on the "who" was good, but I had absolutely no idea on the how because despite all the descriptions I could not visualize the place and had no idea that that was possible. To be clear and say names, I could not imagine one of the women or the young men as the murderer, because that ending would have lacked something, so I felt it had to be her loving husband, so desperately in love that could not bear her crush for Mr Carey, but could not live without her now that she was dead. I simply waited for Poirot to explain the why and the how to me. I had thought of the jealousy caused by the gossip on her and Mr Carey, but had not thought of him being also her first husband. She married the same man for the second time without knowing it... it's true that it is said she only lived with him for a few months twenty years ago, and also that she was very self-centered, and selfish, but it still seems hard to accept. Anyway, that's how it is, the first husband that used to threaten her with letters whenever she got close to another man met her again , and again got her to marry him, although she didn't feel any passion for him, since she then found that feeling with Mr Carey. So how come he convinced her to marry him not once, but twice? This part of the story I didn't like.
The rest was ok, but I would have gladly done without this last bit: it's a twist, yes, because the one man that loved her so much was also the man that had threaten her for years, but there was no need for it. It would have been enough to say that Leidner loved her with the same passion as her first husband, and like him could not bear to think of her with another man, and got crazy jealous when she fell for Carey. This would have been enough and, to me, a much better solution altogether.
Ita: Non c'è più scampo
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