John Cruikshank Rose

John Cruikshank Rose (A.R.I.B.A.) was an architect and friend of Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan. He was Max's colleague during his first independent archaeological expedition to Arpachiyah in 1933. As the expedition's architect, Rose undertook the planning and surveying of the dig and shared in all the fieldwork. He also did the drawings of artefacts. He later coauthored the expedition report which included many of his drawings and wrote Chapter 2 on the construction of the "tholoi" (a honeycomb tomb) which had been excavated. Christie later dedicated her novel A Caribbean Mystery to Rose (there his middle name is spelt "Cruickshank"). The excavation at Arpachiyah is also commemorated in her dedication in Murder on the Orient Express.

Rose apparently lived in St Lucia in the Caribbean after World War Two. He may have met Christie during her holiday to the West Indies, which explains the dedication.