A colorful murder mystery in which a spirited young woman plays amateur sleuth aboard a luxury cruise ship to South AfricaAfter young Anne Beddingfeld witnesses an accidental death in a London tube station—and the bizarre behavior of a man in a brown suit who flees the scene—she becomes convinced that foul play is at work. A woman is found murdered the next day and the police show no interest in … show no interest in Anne’s theory that the two incidents are connected.
Spurred by a cryptic note dropped by the man in brown, Anne impulsively uses all her savings to book passage on a cruise ship heading to South Africa. On the voyage she finds herself at the center of a high-stakes game involving stolen diamonds, high society idlers, a mysteriously attractive young man, and a master criminal and his double-crossing minions.
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THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT is a Christie rarity, a stand-alone book. Because of this, my expectations going in were perhaps a bit lower than they should have been. The crisp, witty dialog between the main characters had me rolling at times, and of course the antagonist was difficult to spot, especially with the author’s usual layering of red herrings.
This book’s slight divergence from mystery (a Christie forte) to thriller (not so much) detracted a little, as did the cringy romantic bits. But these are small faults; if you’re a Christie fan, you’ll find plenty to love in these pages.
This isn’t an Agatha Christie book that I haven’t read before and I decided to listen to this on an audiobook. This has all the suspense, characters having secrets and a twist at the end. I may have to listen to more in this series.
I have owned and reread this book multiple times. One of her best suspense books. You can always count on Christie to provide a marvelous twist at the end.
It has been many years since I first read The Man in the Brown Suit so when I had the chance to snag an audio version, I anticipated a nostalgic comfy coze and I got that.
The Man in the Brown Suit is about newly orphaned, young and adventurous Anne Beddingfield grasping a chance at an adventure. She is on the scene when a man is killed and an interesting coded paper falls out. This leads her to take an ocean cruise to South Africa, discovering a recent murder story is tied to the past and a shadowy mastermind who is still orchestrating his plan. Anne slips into and out of deadly situations and does it with pluck. She is determined to see the adventure to the end with the help of lady about town, Suzanne Blair, grumbling MP Sir Eustance Pedlar, suave and saturnine Colonel Race, oily vicar Mr. Chichester, suspicious Rayburn and exacting Mr. Pagett.
The cruise ship setting and then exotic locale of South Africa and Rhodesia were fabulously drawn as were the cast of characters. The adventures were dangerous and yet felt light and Nancy Drew-ish when it comes to Anne Beddingfield.
Yes, that means my youthful rememberances of loving this book were not quite there this time and I found Anne engaging, but also woefully naive and more lucky than right.
Still… fun times.
This was my first time with narrator, Emilia Fox. I loved how she did the overall narration and Anne’s voice, but I could not adjust to Suzanne’s shrill-ish instead of friendly cosmpolitan or some of the mens’ scratchy, froggy voices that were distracting and didn’t seem to match some of the characters. I felt she portrayed some of the emotions differently than seemed to suit the particular scene. I would give her another try in a different story.
So, all in all, it was entertaining and engaging, but lost a bit of shine from my early enthusiasm. Those who enjoy the classic style romantic suspense adventures should definitely give this a try.