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    The Man in the Brown Suit: The Official Authorized Edition
    The Man in the Brown Suit: The Official Authorized Edition
    The Man in the Brown Suit: The Official Authorized Edition
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Man in the Brown Suit: The Official Authorized Edition

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Emilia Fox

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The Man in the Brown Suit is Agatha Christie at her best, as a young woman makes a dangerous decision to investigate a shocking “accidental” death she witnesses at a London tube station.

    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""?


    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJul 3, 2012
    ISBN9780062233721
    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

    3.5/5

    921 ratings39 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Typical Agatha Christie. Set in the 1920s it's full of 'plucky girls' and 'rugged, handsome men'. All very dated now, but typical of the period.

      This is neither a Poirot, Marple nor Tommy & Tuppence novel, but a standalone story and zips along at the usual sort of pace. Some of the clues are obvious, some less so and there's a dusting of romance in there that you don't usually get with her novels.

      It was a quick easy read, which is what I was looking for, but I suspect I'm getting a little jaded with all the Agatha Christies and will need to give them a rest for a while.
    • 3/5
      From London to South Africa, a young Englishwoman – eager for adventure – follows a trail of strange clues, only to find herself in a web of theft, lies and political intrigue.

      One of Christie’s first novels, "The Man in the Brown Suit" is clearly in the thriller genre, and – like almost all of her thrillers – it ultimately becomes a morass of spy-story ideas that don’t quite gel together. However, unlike most of them, this book is attractive and engaging, with an enjoyable heroine in Anne Beddingfield, and a solid supporting turn by Colonel Race, who would later lead the cast of "Sparkling Cyanide" before returning for two superlative Poirot novels.
    • 4/5
      More a thriller than a usual Agatha Christie whodunit. Rather a large cast, making the plot a bit complex - but cleverly written, as ever, with satisfactory ending.
    • 3/5
      i read this when i was 12 and liked it. now it seems really stupid. after finishing it at 12 and loving it (it was my first adult mystery), i lent it to a friend whose mother wouldn't let her read it because of the cover--a woman in a strapless dress being pursued to cliff side by a man in a brown suit(to the best of my memory 50 years later). i can remember my mother saying " has she never heard of agatha christie?".
    • 3/5
      A newly orphaned young woman, Anne Beddingfield, heads off to make her way in the world and finds herself embroiled in the midst of an unexpected adventure. Anne is spunky, if a bit too naïve and reminded me a bit of Catherine in Northanger Abbey. Anne’s read too many mystery novels (as opposed to Catherine’s penchant for gothic novels) and sees a bit of mystery in everything. I wasn’t thrilled with this one. I won’t get into the plot too much, except to say Anne witnesses a death, meets lots of people and ends up falling in love. It was nothing to keep you up at night flipping pages, which is kinda what I want from a mystery. It was less creepy goodness and more whodunit with a dollop of romance. It’s not a bad book, just a light entertaining read. It’s not quite up to par with some of Christie’s darker murder mysteries, like my favorite, And Then There Were None. I’d skip this one and pick up a different Christie instead.  
    • 3/5
      I liked Ann a lot but the ending really pulled it down.
    • 5/5
      I love Agatha Christie and this book is not an exception! Miss Beddingfield's narrative is witty and very funny. Another enjoyable read. (Pity the movie made of it, with Stephany Zimbalist as Miss Beddingfield, diverged so much from the original story.)
    • 4/5
      Ann Beddingfield saw a stranger fall to death on the rails of the Underground. A doctor in a brown suit pronounced him dead and vanished into a crowd. A link to a famous ballerina murder, a fortune in diamonds and blackmail leads to an attempt on Anne's life. An isolated mansion holds the solution to the bizarre mystery for this young sleuth. Another great classic from the Queen of Crime!
    • 4/5
      This is a well-written mystery, but with horrible characters. If only Agatha had spent a bit more time on her characters and their motives, this would have been a five stars book.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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...

    • 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...
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.