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The Man in the Brown Suit: Level 5, B2+
The Man in the Brown Suit: Level 5, B2+
The Man in the Brown Suit: Level 5, B2+
Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

The Man in the Brown Suit: Level 5, B2+

Written by Agatha Christie

Narrated by Jane Collingwood

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners.

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter with the language targeted at learners of English.

Pretty, young Anne Beddingfeld comes to London looking for adventure. But adventure finds her when she sees a man fall off an Underground platform and die on the rails.

The police think the death was an accident. But who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body before running away? Anne has only one clue, but she is determined to bring the mysterious killer to justice.

Anne’s adventure takes her on a cruise ship all the way to Cape Town and on into Africa…

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 13, 2016
ISBN9780008210434
The Man in the Brown Suit: Level 5, B2+
Author

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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Reviews for The Man in the Brown Suit

Rating: 3.6311813945054943 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Anne Beddingfeld is a young woman trapped in the dull countryside of England with her anthropologist father. Her longing for bright lights and adventure is realized when her father dies, but her impulsive trip to London segues into an impulsive voyage on a steamship to Africa in pursuit of a man she thinks she saw commit a murder (the titular man in the brown suit). She's caught up in a series of increasingly improbable events both on board the ship and later in South Africa, and survives more or less in spite of herself.This is one of Dame Agatha's earliest novels — I think it was her fourth — and it shows. The plot contains the twists and turns we came to expect from a typical Christie mystery, but it's rough around the edges and doesn't always hold together on close scrutiny. That the first problem. The second is not Christie's fault, but mine. One of the main suspects in this adventure is a man I first encountered in a couple of Hercule Poirot mysteries, written much later. Because he was on the side of the angels (or rather the funny little Belgian with the mustaches) in those, I knew he couldn't be a murderer here. That's just the kind of thing that happens if you don't stick to strict chronological order, kids.I read this now to fulfill the first prompt (read a book inspired by Christie's travel) in the reading challenge sponsored by Christie's official website.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A book by Agatha Christie I hadn’t read yet! Similar to her Tommy and Tuppence books in theme. More adventure/thriller than mystery but thoroughly enjoyable.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I like Ann. The point of view is sometimes from Anne. Sometimes we are getting the diary of Sir Eutace Peddler. It is full of false identities. Many people are not who they appear to be.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Enh. I don't like Christie in "spy thriller" mode as much as in mystery mode – although this did have a mystery, with an interesting solution – and the sexual politics in this one just flat out revolt me. And it is of it today and of its social class in its discussion of Rhodesia in the 1920s. Since it's counted as part of a "Colonel Race" series, and I really liked Cards on the Table, I had hoped to like this better than I did.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    My journey in the mysteries of Agatha Christie continues with The Man in the Brown Suit. This falls under the Colonel Race series and involves so many characters playing multiple parts that I felt lost at times. When her father dies, Anne Beddingfeld decides that she must live and take chances. First a man falls to his death at the train station in front of her, then a man in a brown suit stating he is a doctor examines the fallen man. Anne retrieves a slip of paper the man in the brown suit drops and thus begins her sleuthing. Anne then finds a canister of undeveloped film at Mill House where a woman has been killed. Anne quickly books passage on the ship, Kilmorden Castle, bound for Africa. As usual, Agatha Christie supplies many charming and alarming characters. Anne encounters an attempt to throw her overboard and a kidnapping but prevails in these adventures. The style fringes on light banter between the characters and danger seems distant. Anne narrates half of the story and Sir Eustace Pedler’s diary details the remaining story, an interesting approach to the narrative. This lacks the forcefulness of Poirot.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is one of the less well known Christie novels from her early period in the mid 1920s. For much of the time it doesn't feel like a traditional Christie novel, given its setting mostly at sea and in South Africa. The narrator is Anne Bedingfield, daughter of a palaeontologist, who witnesses a man falling to his death on the London tube tracks after being frightened by someone behind her. She gets involved in the machinations of an international criminal gang smuggling diamonds, led by a mysterious individual known only as The Colonel. The usual blend of false identities and red herrings which is quite good fun.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Another book I read in middle school and do not remember. Another strong performance by Emilia Fox. This story, however, is one of Christie's weaker ones. Anne witnesses what turns out to be a murder and decides to get involved as a way to get a reporter's job (rather than her receptionist's position) on a newspaper. She ends up buying a boat ticket to South Africa, and shockingly (/s) is in over her head. But she is not the actual detective here, it's Colonel Race. This is book 1, after all. He is not really a major player in the story, however. Which is kind of weird. And really, how many proposals should one young woman get in a mystery novel? Personally, I would go with zero, but Anne gets 3 (4 if you count 2 from the same guy). Not to my taste at all.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a well-written book of its age and type (it was written in the 1920s), with just a few places where one grinds one's teeth at the ideas about female psychology back in the dark ages. (The heroine actually tells someone that women in love enjoy doing things they dislike if the man they love enjoys the thing in question!) I give it 4 stars for suspense and enough red herrings to make it very interesting. It does have the usual love at first sight nonsense, but there is usually a couple in her books who bond over the trials and tribulations...

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An early thriller from Agatha Christie - channeling the "Perils of Pauline" our heroine, fortuitously orphaned and penniless sets out in search of adventure and love and finds both in South Africa. Reads well for a light read though some of the casual racism (I've only recently realised that "Kaffir Boy" doesn't refer to a child) doesn't sit well with a modern audience. The heroine is feisty with a strong sense of self and I don't buy that her captulation to the hero (with all the "you're my woman / I'm your man" maundering is in character, she does capitulate but only because she wants to...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Man in the Brown Suit is a mystery novel, but it also reads like a grand adventure. There's a murder to be solved for sure, but there's also espionage, a perilous sea voyage, diamond smuggling, kidnapping, a journey across Africa, and romance. Looking back, I'm amazed at how much Agatha Christie was able to fit into the novel. And yet, it didn't seemed forced or crammed in.Here's how the publisher describes the book:Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her—and finds her immediately at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Anne is present on the platform when a thin man, reeking of mothballs, loses his balance and is electrocuted on the rails.The Scotland Yard verdict is accidental death. But Anne is not satisfied. After all, who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body? And why did he race off, leaving a cryptic message behind: "17-122 Kilmorden Castle"?Of all the Agatha Christie books I've read, this is by far the most adventurous. Anne Beddingfield is a fun character to follow, and the plot has several twists that took me by surprise. Another solid story from the Mistress of Mystery.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In another early Christie outing, we get yet another effort that is as much a thriller as it is a detective story or mystery. It's the only canon appearance of Anne Beddingfield, a young English woman who, after her father's death, gives in to her desire to seek adventure. In her case, it starts with a death in a London tube station and leads her to South Africa and a diamond caper. It's also the earliest appearance of Colonel Race, whose interest in Beddingfield is not reciprocated. He gets over it, though, and goes on to become pals with a guy named Hercule Poirot.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A young woman semi-witnesses a man back-up, stumble, & fall under a train.... She tells the police, that the man had a surprised look on his face as if he'd seen someone/something that frightened him.She also watches a man in a brown suit acting as a doctor examine him and pronounce him dead.... He "doctor" hurriedly walks away, but not before dropping a piece of paper out of his pocket..... A clue which she decides to follow up on.She is led to a house on the market, owned by a "colonel",there upon a strangled woman, and the young man who has found the dead woman....The young woman goes to the local paper w/ her information & convinces the editor to give her a chance at investigative journalism, which leads her further into danger (ridiculous situations) and eventually a fine romance and a prime job.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another classic mystery from Dame Agatha. I loved her wit and humor placed in this one. My favorite character and point of view in the story was Sir Eustace Pedlar. He played the stereotypical bumbling English gentleman, but you could always tell there was some intelligence there behind it. I listened to the audio performance, and I must admit I think the narrator helped the story along. She seemed to know each character and knew how to portray them emotionally even if she couldn't quite get them voice-wise.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Man in the Brown Suit begins with Anne Beddingfeld, the daughter of a professor who longs for adventure. She spends her day trying to avoid creditors and longing to meet a nice young man. When her father dies, she takes an opportunity to go to London, where she witnesses the death of a man. Finding a piece of paper dropped at the scene, she believes the death to be linked to that of the murder of a young woman at the house of Sir Eustace Pedlar. With only eighty five pounds to her name, her deductions ignored by the police, she boards a ship bound for South Africa. On board she meets not only Sir Eustace Pedlar but his secretary Guy Pagett, society beauty Suzanne Blair, the enigmatic Colonel Race and the attractive Harry Rayburn. If she can find out who the man in the brown suit is, seen leaving Sir Pedlar's house shortly after the murder, she hopes for a job as a journalist.

    The story starts off at a slow pace, but it builds momentum with multiple deaths, stolen jewels, an old injustice, and kidnappings. Published in 1924 it was actually written in serialized form as “Anne the Adventuress”. I'm not a huge Christie fan but I did enjoy the quirky characters, lively dialogue and entertaining adventure story.

    Overall, The Man in the Brown Suit is not the greatest mystery book, nor the greatest Agatha Christie book. It is, however, a very enjoyable addition to her highly acclaimed body of work and any Christie fan is bound to enjoy it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Along with her popular private detective series, and her stand-alone mysteries, Christie also wrote a number of books that are a blend of mystery and espionage story. The Man in the Brown Suit is an example of this type of Christie story. Ann Beddingfeld becomes entangled in danger and secrets, an adventure which she eagerly pursues. She witnesses a man fall on the live track at the train station, which instantly kills him. A doctor happens to be on hand to examine him. He drops a note as he is leaving the scene, and she snatches it. She can't decipher the note's strange message - 17.1 22 Kilmorden Castle - but she does notice that it smells like moth balls, just like the dead man did. The next day, Ann reads an article in the paper which reveals that a woman was just found dead at a house which was the same one as that on an ad in the dead man's pocket. The newspapers report that the only suspect is a young man in a brown suit.Ann knows that these two events are connected, and something bigger is underfoot.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Soon after the death of her anthropologist father, young Anne Beddingfeld witnesses the accidental death of a stranger in the tube station. She also realizes that the doctor who pushes his way into the crowd to examine the dead man doesn't seem to know anything about basic anatomy, which makes Anne follow the fraud and starts her adventure. Determined to prove that she had witnessed a crime of some kind, Anne boards a ship for South Africa, which is on the brink of revolution. Aboard, she becomes friends with a famous socialite, meets Member of Parliament Sir Eustace Pedlar and his three secretaries, Secret Service man Colonel Race, and falls in love with a wanted criminal.This is one of Christie's most fun and most active. Anne's thirst for adventure has her fighting, falling down cliffs, being chased through the city and receiving proposals. If you want to sample a Christie that is not her typical English locked room mystery, this is a good one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    French translation of The Man in the Brown Suit. See review there. This previously belonged to y parents, probably my mother who ha taught French and read it fluently. I read it less fluently.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Always enjoy an Agatha Christie mystery! Thought Anne Beddingfield was a fantastic heroine, can't wait to read the Miss Marple books and the other books narrated by a female.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the first non series that Christie wrote. Published in 1924 it takes place in 1920. A feisty young girl raised in a sheltered way catering to her scholarly father has the whole world before her after her father dies but she has made no plans until she is present at the death of a man who falls on the third rail in the subway. A man in a brown suit claiming to be a doctor tries to resuscitate the man but rushes off dropping a mysterious piece of paper.

    Our heroine Anne Beddingfeld grabs the piece of paper and starts on an adventure of a lifetime.
    Anne is an unusual girl for the era in someways because she is educated, fearless and intrepid. On the other hand she longs for romance and all the things others girls of the time want. A man, family and a home.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A good book by Christie that doesn't fit what became her traditional formula. It alternates well between a first person account by Anne and the journal/diary of Sir Edgar. There is even a little love-interest typically absent in novels Christie wrote under her own name.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    London, januar 1922.Prolog:En superskurk kaldet "Oberst" er ved at trække sig tilbage. Inden krigen (= 1. verdenskrig) og under den har han styret diverse kriminalitet og spionage. En af hans medarbejdere, Nadina, har spillet ham et puds med nogle uslebne diamanter og vil nu indkassere gevinsten.Selve handlingen:Anne Beddingfield er datter af en professor, der er berømt, men kun næsten solvent. Han dør og hun er forældreløs, men har ben i næsen og beslutter at hvis hun opsøger eventyret, så vil det nok møde hende på halvvejen!.Hun overværer tilfældigt en ulykke, hvor en mand falder ned på de elektriske skinner i undergrunden og bliver dræbt. En "læge" i brunt tøj kommer til og undersøger liget, men forsvinder, da der kommer politi. I skyndingen taber han en seddel som Anne samler op. Hun satser alle sine penge på at forfølge sporet og havner på et skib Kilmorden Castle på vej mod Sydafrika. Kort tid efter togulykken blev en ung kvinde fundet kvalt og også dette dødsfald er forbundet til nogle af passagererne ombord. Anne klistrer sig på en Sir Eustace Pedler, der har to sekretærer med på sin rejse til Rhodesia, Guy Pagett, der ligner en giftmorder og en Harry Rayburn, der måske er prakket ham på af udenrigsministeriet, der har givet ham et brev med til general Jan Smuts, premierministeren i Sydafrika.Anne finder ud af at Rayburn er "manden i brunt tøj", men holder mund med det for hun er blevet glødende forelsket i ham. Hun bliver bedste veninde med Suzanne Blair og de to tilsammen regner meget ud og får resten foræret af tilfældet. Fx dumper en pose diamanter ned på Suzanne midt om natten, fordi hun har byttet kahyt med en anden.En farefuld togfærd starter med at Anne med nød og næppe når toget på trods af at nogen først har forsøgt at kvæle hende på skibet og siden spærre hende inde. Hun lokkes væk fra toget og falder ud over en skrænt. Rayburn - som vi i mellemtiden har fundet ud af sikkert hedder Harry Lucas og sammen med en kammerat gik i en fælde stillet af obersten og kun lige undgik en fængselsdom for diamanttyveri - dukker op og redder hende.Mere en thriller end en krimi. og ikke nogen god bog, men det er så også kun den fjerde publicerede Agatha Christie roman, så det er ok at den er ret ufriseret, har en utroværdig dialog og at plottet har nogle huller.Anne afslører at Sir Eustace Pedler er "obersten" og han bliver fængslet, men undslipper og sender Anne et brev, hvor hun ønskes held og lykke. Pagett afslører at han har kone og børn, hvilket han har holdt hemmeligt for sin arbejdsgiver, Pedler. På et tidspunkt, hvor Pagett burde have været i Florence, var han i stedet ved konen og han og Pedler så tilfældigvis hinanden. Pagett syntes det var pinligt og holdt mund med det. Pedler var mere bekymret, for det ville ødelægge hans alibi for mordet på Nadina, hvis det kom frem. Rayburn alias Harry Lucas har også en hemmelighed. Han er Laurence Earlsfield og overtog Harry Lucas's identitet, da denne blev dræbt i første verdenskrig. Anne tør dog godt gifte sig med ham selv om han er adelig og rig. Oberst Race har arvet i Laurence's sted, da alle troede at Laurence var død, men både Race og Laurence er godt tilfredse med den ordning for indeværende, så Laurence og Anne venter med at flytte til London.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is Christie’s fourth published book and one can see a rabid maturation of her writing technique. After returning, in her third book, to a story built around a detective, she goes back in this book to the “romp” style of her second book. This time, however, the romp is executed with much more panache than in the first case. The Man in the Brown Suit has a plot as contrived and coincidence strewn as The Secret Adversary but is more dependent on the cliches and tropes of literature than those of films imported from the United States. At the same time the book is paced more like a movie than was TSA with changes of venue and actions sequences to distract the reader from paying too much attention to the actual plot. Christie also manages to make the “real” villain amusing and likeable which means that even the many readers who twig to what is going on fairly early in the game will still find the story a fun ride.It is also interesting to see a book in which the woman is clearly an “action" protagonist not someone wracked by sensibility. Yes, Anne’s life is saved more than once by the mysterious man to whom she is attracted, but Anne also plays an important role in saving his life. And though he may be stronger and land a meaner punch one ends the book with the suspicion that she is the smarter of the two--and that she knows it. It is also enjoyable to find a book which shows two smart women enjoying a real friendship not based on their common relationship to a man.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This isn't a great book in literary terms, and Agatha Christie certainly wrote better, more mature works. Nonetheless, this is one of my favourites. I like to think of it as the 'mashed potato of novels; it makes me feel good, especially when I'm a little under the weather.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is unlike any Agatha Christie I have ever read. It is a variation of the “damsel in distress” stories that I used to devour in my younger years—early [[Mary Stewart]] and Victoria Holt come to mind. It features a young and plucky heroine with intelligence who doesn’t always stop to think before rushing in where even fools would fear to tread. It is written in an interesting style with two POVs. I was pretty sure who the “villain” was fairly early on and certain of my conclusion well before the end, but there were enough other questions to be answered to keep me interested and two real surprises. It was a perfect “light” read when I was feeling puny. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This Agatha Christie's 4th novel, and as she did in the first 3, you can see her experimenting with a different style of murder mystery.In the Prologue, in the dressing room of a Russian dancer in Paris, through a meeting she has with another Russian, we learn 3 things. Firstly neither of them are Russian. Secondly they have both been working for an arch criminal who is on the point of retirement. The "Colonel" has, even during the First World War, organised a series of "stupendous" coups including jewel robberies, forgery, espionage, assassination, and sabotage. Thirdly we learn the story of the theft of some South American diamonds before the war. The dancer knows where these diamonds are and intends to exchange them for some of the "Colonel's" accumulated wealth.THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT is narrated by two characters. The first, whom we meet in Chapter 1, is Anne Beddingfield. It is she who witnesses the death of a strange-smelling man when he falls off an Underground platform and is electrocuted on the rails. She also sees a man dressed in a brown suit who pretends to be doctor, inspects the body and pronounces the man dead, and then rushes away, dropping a scrap of paper with a cryptic message on it as he does so.The second narrator is Sir Eustace Pedler MP who keeps a diary. We begin reading extracts from his diary in chapter 8. Inevitably the paths of the two narrators converge. A young woman dies in a house that Sir Eustace owns called Mill House, and he is forced to return from abroad. He is then asked by the British government to travel to South Africa, where he has business interests, to deliver a message in person to the government of Rhodesia.After that the setting, with all the characters we've met so far, and a few more besides, moves to a ship going to South Africa, and then the action moves to South Africa itself.I have my reservations about THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT.I think Agatha Christie tried to move from a murder mystery to a thriller with connections to the world of organised crime, unionism, espionage and romance. The result is a longer book with a lot of time lapses in it, caused mainly by the distances between locations, and the nature of what happens to the first narrator Anne Beddingfield. Some of the scenarios don't quite work and the result is confusion rather than a genuine puzzle for the reader to solv.Christie tried also to show her awareness of political events in South Africa, and we get occasional mentions of General Smuts thrown into the mix.And finally, it is a plot where definitions of good and bad are blurred, and in the long run evil goes unpunished.The book sees the first appearance of Colonel Race; he later appears in Cards on the Table, Sparkling Cyanide, and Death on the Nile.The Wikipedia entry gives a lot of plot details, reactions of reviewers at the time, including a comment about the fact that she had not used Hercule Poirot, but had in fact introduced another "detective" in the form of Colonel Race.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What can you say in a review about Agatha Christie?? Of course I liked it. I like nearly everything she wrote. However, I did find this book to be different from some of her other books. Usually Christie springs the romance on you at the end of the book - suddenly these two people discover their love and decide to get married. However, in this book the romance goes through almost the entire plot. And of course there is always a dramatic twist at the end of a Christie story. In this book, though, the plot twists didn't surprise me so much. I kinda saw them coming. ;) I wasn't so sure if I liked the romance at the end or not. A part of me was hoping she would end up with a different man. But I enjoyed reading this, as I do all her writings.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was directly inspried by an Empire Tour taken by Agatha and Arthur Christie, and colonial South Africa and Rhodesia take centre stage in the novel. Its also surpising that this was first published in 1924 as its heroine, Anne Beddingfield, is depicted as a modern, liberated, adventerous woman, who falls in love with a man who is best described as a combination of Heathcliff, Rochester and Darcy. This is an adventure story rather than a detective story and really is a ripping yarn.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've been rereading all my Agatha Christie books while I'm recovering from surgery. Anne is a great heroine. After her father dies, Anne is tired of keeping house and ready for an adventure. So she spends her inheritance on a ticket to South Africa. She gets entangled in a mystery involving stolen diamonds and a master criminal. I remember being quite surprised by the identity of the criminal the first time I read this book, but this time round it was just good fun to be swept up in the story.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I’ll get it off my chest right away: The Man in the Brown Suit is a mess.It pains me (like a jewel-hilted dagger in the back) to say this but Agatha Christie’s 1924 novel is below sub-par. The story seems cobbled together from pulp espionage novels, True Romance confessionals, and episodes of The Perils of Pauline. You can almost see the threads stitching together this patchwork quilt.The plot is such a jumbled mess that I’m finding it hard to come up with a proper summary.It all starts when Anne Beddingfeld—a poor, friendless but ever-chipper girl whose “life had such a dreadful sameness”—witnesses a man fall to his death at a London train station. From there—with the flimsiest of coincidences involving an overcoat that smells of mothballs, a dropped note and a fake doctor—Anne is off on a series of adventures which take her from London to Africa in the turn of a page.As the estimable Bedside Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie puts it, this is “a tale of international intrigue, diamond thefts, murder, shipboard shenanigans, bomb-throwing revolutionaries, island idylls, and at least three marriage proposals.”Throw in a kitchen sink and you’ve pretty much got all of The Man in the Brown Suit.All is not completely lost with this novel; there are still flashes of Agatha’s trademark wit and economical way with words—especially in her descriptions of characters. The shifty Guy Pagett, secretary to Sir Eustace Pedler is described thusly: “The only amusing thing about the fellow is his face. He has the face of a fourteenth-century poisoner—the sort of man the Borgias got to do their odd jobs for them.”But then it settles back into dull briskness (or brisk dullness I can’t quite be sure).I’ll chalk this one off as an early mistake of Agatha’s. This was only her fourth published book and she was testing the limits of her creativity—trying to find that balance between devising a formula for brain-snapping puzzle plots and a speedy, efficient style which would allow her to churn out books quickly enough to pay the bills.The Man in the Brown Suit (which was also called, variously, The Mystery of the Mill House and Anna the Adventuress) missed the mark by a mile. Die-hard fans will always find something to love about every Christie novel, but for this reader, I’d rather reach for a Poirot or Marple. Heck, I’d even settle for Tommy and Tuppence on a bad day.One small note of interest: in the center of my paperback copy of The Man in the Brown Suit (a 1962 Dell which once sold for 40 cents), there is a neat hole running through the entire volume. It seems a previous reader fired a BB gun at the book. I can certainly understand why. The Man in the Brown Suit is just another Christie victim itself.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This was interesting, as it was one of her very early efforts. Though the dialogue was outlandish at times, the heroine unnatural and the romance and adventure laid on a bit thick, there were some solid characters and the mystery was intriguing and well thought out. An enjoyable read, but not necessary to repeat.