The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

I was a huge Agathe Christie fan as a teenager and in my early teens, and although I have not read much by the author since devouring all her books in my youth, this amazing woman still intrigues me. I found the whole book captivating, read it in two days, and I was sorry when it ended. He was voiced in a strange brogue which was certainly not Welsh - much closer to the Irish valleys. The Anglican vicar in Baghdad is described in the book as having a lilting accent from the Welsh Valleys. However the accents left something to be desired. I didn't warm to the slightly odd tone of voice of the narrator, but I got used to this, and it didn't spoil a superb story. I only spotted one glaring anachronism: when one character makes reference to 'the first world war': in 1928 this was of course known as 'the Great War', only becoming the First World War to distinguish it from the Second World war in 1939-46.

The story appears to be well researched, with a real sense of time and place. The Kindle version includes a brief Afterword which spells out the relationship of the novel to history - unfortunately this is omitted from the Audible version. A superb combination of fictionally enhanced historical characters (Agatha Christie, the Woolleys and Max Mallowen) blended with purely fictional figures such as Nancy.

The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne Ashford