The 8.55 to Baghdad

I was originally reticent to purchase this audiobook - I cant explain why - but I was glad that I did.

The initial premise of the journey (and the book) was to follow Agatha Christie's journey over land from the UK to Baghdad but the story turned into so much more. This book didnt cover just one journey by Christie, rather her 'second' life, following her divorce from her first husband and her travels and then life married to the much younger (~13 years younger) Max the archaeologist.

Christie was the premise, but not the main focus of the book. This was the countries the author travelled through, including the Baltic countries (a decade after being bombed into submission by Nato) through to Iraq (in the days leading up to the bombing by, you guessed it, Nato, in the initial days on the post-9/11 invasion to oust Saddam). Much is also given to the people he meets and travels with and the factions that develop when English people in particular travel together.

I rarely read/listen to non-fiction books that cover topics still so fresh in everyone's mind, but this book does not suffer. Eames is sympathetic to the peoples he meets (bar the English he travels with!), and is a decent narrator, which makes things all the easier to listen to