The 8.55 to Baghdad

by Andrew Eames (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $4.20

  Travel journalist Andrew Eames was in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo when he met an elderly lady who had known Agatha Christie. Fascinated by the exotic history of this quintessentially English crime writer, he decided to retrace the trip from London to Baghdad which she made in 1928 - a journey which was to change Agatha Christie completely and led to her other life as the wife of an archaeologist in the deserts of Syria and Iraq. Travelling from London to Baghdad by train on the eve of the Iraq war, through the troubled areas of the Balkans and the Middle East, Eames found stark contrasts to the old Orient Express route as well as some unexpected connections with the past.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $3.25

  Andrew Eames is an adventurous, insightful and sympathetic observer who sets out to travel from London to Baghdad by train, following the route of the old Orient Express. Interwoven through his own experience, with the colourful cast of characters he encounters en route, is an identical journey made by Agatha Christie in 1928, a journey which was to change her life completely and led to her spending 30 seasons on archaeological digs in the deserts of Syria and Iraq. As Eames' own journey progresses he begins to reveal details of that exotic second existence of the world's most widely read author. The modern journey from London to Baghdad by train is actually far harder to do today than it was in Agatha's day. Many of the countries Eames passes through, from the Balkans and into the Middle East, have had a particularly bad press in recent years, and yet the people the author meets are invariably delightful Eventually he arrives at the Iraqi border at the same time as the UN weapons inspectors, and thus was one of the last tourists to experience the reality of Saddam Hussein's regime. As the book approaches its final destination of Ur, one of the first cities mentioned in Genesis an

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $15.52

  Travel journalist Andrew Eames was in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo when he met an elderly lady who had known Agatha Christie. Fascinated by the exotic history of this quintessentially English crime writer, he decided to retrace the trip from London to Baghdad which she made in 1928 - a journey which was to change Agatha Christie completely and led to her other life as the wife of an archaeologist in the deserts of Syria and Iraq. Travelling from London to Baghdad by train on the eve of the Iraq war, through the troubled areas of the Balkans and the Middle East, Eames found stark contrasts to the old Orient Express route as well as some unexpected connections with the past.