Resumo de They Came To Baghdad

It is 1950. Victoria Jones is a young cockney with no degree, who has relied on her fertile imagination, her looks and her dubious talent as a short-hand typist all her life.For the third time in as many weeks, she is out of work, and with nothing to commend her, is about to give up on London all together, when she chances to meet an immensely handsome young man on a park bench, who, apparently delirious with desire, takes several photographs of her before declaring that they will never meet again, and flying off to Baghdad to do ?secret? you know? work with an international literary translation company known as the Olive Branch.Before he leaves, the man manages to divulge a Christian name - Edward - and a cryptic suggestion that there is something ?fishy? at the Olive Branch. Feisty and susceptible, Victoria immediately resolves to somehow get to Baghdad, which she has never heard of, despite her pitiful financial status.As luck would have it, a wealthy American woman has injured herself and needs a female companion to fly out to Baghdad with her - and furthermore, she has only requested help from the agency to which Victoria has subscribed. Victoria seeks an interview, with some craftily forged references and some exotically fabricated relatives - some real, some fictional, but none related to her, and of course Mrs. Hamilton Clipp, the American, is happy to employ her. So off flies Victoria in pursuit of a cherubic young man she has fallen for.She arrives in Baghdad, meets a suitable array of colourful characters - the eccentric Sir Rupert Crofton Lee who dresses in a cape and bristly moustache (the perfect person to be impersonated, one thinks), the degenerate Mr. Dakin, and the acerbic Mrs. Croyton, who has seen through Victoria?s many white lies. She meets another interesting man - an Englishman called Henry Carmichael who is, more or less, an Arab. He knocks on the door of her hotel room, lurches in, utters a few cryptic words, and promptly dies.Thus, Victoria is plunged into work with the British secret service, uncovering an extremely vague international conspiracy set on turning the world into a kind of elitist utopia. There will be another mysterious death, and she will be forced to work on both sides in order to address justice and save the life of an enigmatic banker?s secretary known only (and ominously) as Anna Scheele.With Edward and Mr. Dakin as her only real friends, Victoria is plunged into an adventurous world of kidnap, murder and espionage, in a climate she cannot understand.They came to Baghdad is a pleasure to read, as always, and Mrs. Christie?s consummate talent had certainly not dwindled when, in her early sixties, she penned this exciting adventure. It is ideal light reading from a trustworthy old favourite.

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