spent the afternoon reading the detective novel The Nursing Home Murder, which is the name of a well-known novel by Ngaio Marsh, but the ending of Nurse Leatheran's book differs from the ending of Marsh's. In Chapter 6 and 9, similarities are drawn between Louise Leidner and La Belle Dame sans Merci, a femme fatale figure from an 1819 ballad by John Keats. References in other works In Death on the Nile, Poirot credits his experience on the expedition with developing his methods in detection. He muses: "Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition—and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. This is what I have been seeking to do—clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth..." Adaptations Television Murder in Mesopotamia was adapted as an episode for the series Agatha Christie's Poirot on 2 June 2002. It starred David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, and was filmed on location at the Hotel Casino in Hammam Lif and on the Uthina Archaeological site, both in Tunisia. While it remained faithful to the main plot elements of the novel, including the murder, the motive, and the denouement, the adaptation made a number of changes: The characters of Dr Giles Reilly, Mr Reiter and David Emmott, are omitted. Two characters are given minor changes: Bill Coleman's first name is changed to William; Sheila Reilly becomes Captain Maitland's daughter - her surname is changed as a result, while her character is more pleasant. The character of Captain Hastings is added - apart from being Poirot's assistant in the case, relegating Amy Leatheran to being another suspect in the case, he is also the uncle of William Coleman, whom he is visiting. Poirot is in Iraq mainly to meet with Countess Vera Rossakoff, after receiving a telegram from her asking for his help; she has already left by the time he arrives, and he is only made aware of this via a telephone message he receives when the case is solved. Poirot visits the archaeological dig when he arrives, and so meets with Louise when