The Man in the Brown Suit

The Man in the Brown Suit. Agatha Christie. 1924/2012. HarperCollins. 320 pages.

While I'm not sure it's exactly fair to say that this is one of my least favorite Christie novels, I'm tempted to say it anyway. Because I just didn't care for this one. The narration was a bit strange to me. Most of the novel is narrated by a young woman whose father has just died, Anne Beddingfeld. She's left with practically nothing except her good looks and charm. There's just something about her that makes everyone want to take care of her and trust her. She by chance witnesses an accident, and the "doctor" on the scene of the accident puzzles her greatly though it took her a few hours to figure out just why. A little while later (either that day, or the next) a woman's body is discovered in a house. The house was for sale or for rent, and she had dropped by to see it. There are very few reasons why anyone would connect the two cases together, but, our narrator Anne does. And she takes it upon herself to solve this mystery and discover the identity of the "man in the brown suit." This mystery leads her to a ship bound for South Africa. And it's a trip with danger and risk for both on the ship and off, a number of attempts are made on her life. Along the way, she seems to make a new best friend and fall in love. I didn't exactly like the diary chapters provided by Sir Eustace Pedler. I'm not sure how helpful they were in adding to the story, they proved more distracting than anything else, which I think was the point. The ending, however, is what disappoints me most. The statements the narrator makes about the murderer almost infuriate me. 

Read The Man in the Brown Suit

• If you're a big, big, big fan of Agatha Christie and want to read every mystery she wrote
• If you're expectations are low and you're looking for just something--anything--to read to pass the time

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews