Book Review: The Man in the Brown Suit

As you may have noticed if you get my notifications, this post was not published at my usual time. As an online college student, my schedule is a bit unpredictable. I originally thought scheduling my posting time would help, but it just turned blogging into a chore. I’m still planning to post once a week, but I’m not worrying about sticking to a consistent date and time. Now, without further ado, on to the post!

Between school, writing, and the time I waste sitting around feeling overwhelmed and avoiding laundry, I don’t read as much in a day as I used to. So, it’s been a while since I finished a book in two days. However, once I got into The Man in the Brown Suit, I knew I was going to break that streak (or lack of a streak).

I decided to read this particular book when the Agatha Christie Instagram account posted about its hundredth anniversary. After being a bit surprised that one hundred years ago is no longer the Victorian era, I pulled the book off my shelf and settled into my reading chair. I find Christie the best author to binge-read. Her style is both easy to digest and satisfying, like a stack of fluffy pancakes.

The Man in The Brown Suit is a stand-alone novel. It doesn’t include any of Christie’s main detectives (though the Colonel Race character appears in one or two other books if I remember correctly). The narrator and main character is Anne Beddingfeld, a young woman who witnesses what appears to be a tragic accident. Suspicious circumstances surround this death, however, so Anne decides to investigate. These investigations lead her to a ship bound for Africa where she meets an interesting group of people that all seem to tie in with her case somehow. A pretty socialite, an eccentric aging politician and his enigmatic secretaries, a secret service agent, and a reverend whose identity may be made up out of whole cloth.

Anne is more convinced than ever that what she witnessed back in England was more than an accident. When Colonel Race shares a story of an unsolved diamond heist, things begin to add up. But as Anne closes in on the elusive man in the brown suit, she begins to wonder whether he is really the villain that she expected.

This is a Christie classic for a reason. All my favorite things about her books are on display. I don’t know that it would make my short list of favorites, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love it. It says more about how much I love her Poirot novels.

But, I digress. This post is not about everyone’s favorite Belgian, and we must accept that.

One of Christie’s great talents is her gift for characterization. The Man in the Brown Suit has a varied cast of characters, each of which is vividly rendered and has an important part to play. Suzzane Blair, the wealthy woman, and Eustace Pedler, the parliamentarian, were especially well developed and I always enjoyed their contributions to the story.

As great as these characters are, great characters are par for the course in Christie. What really struck me about The Man in the Brown Suit was the humor.

Obviously, I like reading things that fit my tagline of “adventure with a sense of humor” as much as writing them. I’ve definitely gotten a smile from Christie’s subtle, dry wit in most of her books, but this one had me laughing out loud. Maybe it’s because I’m more aware since I’ve started sharing book quotes on social media, but I underlined so many great lines in just the first few chapters.

Anne’s narrative is broken up by occasional excerpts from Eustace Pedler’s journal. His comments are hilarious. He is essentially a lazy old man and has sarcastic commentary for anything that disturbs his repose. I often don’t care for novels in which part of the narrative is carried by diaries or letters, but I loved it this time. Christie perfectly captured a persnickety, self-absorbed old man. I think if Pedler was a real person living today, he would be a sensation on Twitter!

Humor may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Agatha Christie. In my experience, it’s a bit more pronounced in her earlier work, like this one from 1924. In fact, I’ve seen critical reviews of some of her earlier books because they aren’t as “deep” (for lack of a better word) as some of her later work. Her skills with plotting and her gift for capturing human nature—while good from the start—did improve with time, as we’d expect since she started writing when she was quite young. However, if her early books are different from her later ones, it hasn’t hindered my enjoyment. I think her youthful sense of fun was nothing but an asset in this book. I imagine Anne Beddingfeld was more than a little inspired by the author herself!

Assorted Thoughts

I’ve decided to include a section in my reviews that includes some final thoughts that may not fit with the topics in the main body of the post, but that are still worth sharing. So, here they are:

• Early in the book, Anne customizes a hat with what she calls a “cubist’s dream of a jazz carrot.” The whole scene is quite delightful, but that line in particular is so of the time and quirky.

• I have only solved one Christie mystery. This was not it. It was, however, one of the ones I think she might have convoluted the answer nearly too far. It was better than at least one other I can think of, but I’m not quite sure it fit the “I should have seen it coming” that I like in mysteries.

• Though I love Christie’s “regulars” more, I truly did enjoy Anne. She is a great female lead. Independent, but not annoyingly so like other “strong female characters” I’ve seen more recently.

• I feel I should briefly acknowledge that, as a hundred-year-old book set partially in Africa, there are a few racial ideas included that I don’t love. However, this book is better than some I’ve read, and I have no reservations in recommending it. I think we must keep the lenses of history handy and have a peep through them before judging too harshly.

P.S.

This past Sunday was Agatha Christie’s birthday! If you follow me on social media, you may have seen my post in honor of the occasion. If you haven’t and you’re on Facebook or Instagram, go check it out. It’s a video showing every book in my Christie collection. The links to my accounts are at the top of my blog.