Detective amid her ‘digs’

Press, 25 January 1986, Page 20

Detective amid her ‘digs’

Come, Tell Me How You Live. By Agatha Christie Mallowan. Hamlyn, 1985. 192 pp. Illustrations. $8.95. (Paperback). In 1930 Agatha Christie was already well on her way to fame as the queen of the classic English detective story. In that year she also became the wife of the archeologist Max Mallowan and began her double life as writer and helpmate. This book describes the progress of a series of archeological “digs” in Syria and Iraq during the Czech secrets Czech Mate. By David Brierley. Pan, 1985. 285 pp. $8.95 (paperback). “Czech Mate” is a better-than-average spy thriller with a plot and characters that cause one little difficulty in suspending disbelief. Leo Panuska is a half-Czech, half-English S.I.S. agent, an arch womaniser, who whips back to Czechoslovakia to bury his mother. This leads him into an adventure in which his origins overtake him. His father also was an active agent, but in the latter stages of World War Two. There was treachery and betrayal, but all is revealed to Leo by the elder PanuSka’s diaries and with the help of a beautiful dissident — there usually seems to be one of them about, these days. This is all very well, but back at .home, the members of the Glasshouse are very unsure of Leo’s motives. As ever, in such matters, no-one trusts anyone. Leo might or might not be a double agent, they might or might not want to shoot him just in case. Is he a traitor? Was his father a traitor? Will he beat the system? What do beautiful dissidents see in him? And so on. But it does work well, even though it never quite lives up to the cleverness of its title. — Ken Strongman.

thirties when the Mallowans left family and friends, and the cool, orderly Devonshire countryside, for the Middle East. Expedition life could hardly be more different for a ! gently reared woman. But Agatha Christie had a taste for adventure and‘a robust sense of humour which helped to make it all' seem something of a romp in spite of fleas and mice and cockroaches, dilapidated vehicles, floods and sand and mosquitoes, cold and heat, tents and bureaucrats, and the Middle East temperament There were also many delights: the beauty of the blue, gold, sepia country, the excitements of the search for antiquities, the , comradeship of expedition members at all levels from the leader down to the smallest 'waterboy. Agatha Christie describes it all with affection and good humour, and', although this book was first published soon after the Second World War, it is a joy to have it back ta print for a new generation of readers. — Joan. Curry. ij