The Man in the Brown Suit ~Agatha Christie

–published 1924, audio version published 2005
–BBC Audiobooks America
–read by Emilia Fox
–4.25/5 stars

Anne Beddingfeld is a young woman who longs for the kind of adventures she sees when she goes to the theatre to view The Perils of Pauline. One afternoon in the tube station she sees a lone man fall to his death on the tracks after apparently being startled by some unseen menace behind her. When a suspicious doctor suddenly shows up on the scene and then quickly rushes off, Anne follows him and sees a piece of paper fall from his hand with an enigmatic code on it. Her senses come alive and she believes she has found her adventure, an idea further fueled by a murder allegedly committed by the unknown “man in the brown suit”, a man Anne believes is one and the same with her suspect physician. What follows is a charming whodunit with Wodehousian overtones that takes Anne Beddingfeld away from England, by boat, to the country of South Africa.

In spite of the world-wide fame of the Dame of murder mysteries, until last year my primary familiarity with the work of Agatha Christie was via BBC versions of Poirot and Miss Marple. And while I’ve been delighted with both, it wasn’t until last year that I “read” my first Christie, and audio version of The Seven Dials Mystery from this same company, also read by Emilia Fox. To my surprise I discovered that I had some preconceived ideas of what Agatha Christie’s writing would be like and those ideas were shattered…in the very best sense. What I found in Seven Dials, and has continued with The Man in the Brown Suit, are melodramatic adventures with a romantic flair and a great deal of satirical upper-class humor that I most easily associate with the works of P.G. Wodehouse. A little internet research reveals that these two books, and a handful of others, are perhaps not entirely typical of her writing and this one was especially poorly received when it was released. I myself found it marvelous, particularly when read by the lovely and talented Emilia Fox.

I have only seen Ms. Fox in a few roles–the second Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca, and as Jeff’s attractive co-worker in the BBC version of Coupling–but I enjoyed her in both and had no idea that she was an audio book narrator, let alone a fantastic, award-winning one, until I happened upon The Seven Dials Mystery in the library last year. Emilia Fox brings Christie’s characters to life in such dramatic fashion that these admittedly two-dimensional characters feel three-dimensional. I positively love her reading voice and plan on checking out more of her narrated books.

I will be the first to admit that some of the criticism leveled at this book when it was released, and some that may come now, is probably justified. There is a bit of formula at work here that is not as novel as it perhaps once was. And despite Christie writing female characters with a lot of pluck and sass, there is still to be found a bit of the stereotypical in the way her male and female characters act. And yet I have loved both of these stories immensely. For my own personal taste they masterfully walk that fine line between being dramatic and being overly dramatic. Anne Beddingfeld is a charming ideal, a young woman who wants to experience life rather than be tied down by convention, but who also is not ashamed to fall madly, head-over-heels in love. She gets herself into some predictable scrapes but manages to use her cunning wit to get herself out of those same scrapes.

The Man in the Brown Suit is chock full of interesting characters and, as I’m learning is an Agatha Christie trademark, is full of red herrings. There are clues enough to arouse suspicion about everyone introduced into the story, which makes it a fun ride all the way to the very end. This story is told with the plot device of the journal entry, in this case that of Anne Beddingfeld and Sir Eustace Pedler, one of the more humorous characters in the story. I have been a fan of this method of storytelling since being exposed to it when reading Dracula at the age of 11 or 12.

If you are a fan of the kind of British mystery that mixes high adventure with wit and romance, then I would recommend you check out The Man in the Brown Suit, with the caveat that the audio is so well done that it would be my preferred method of experiencing the story.
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This book is my 13th read for the 2010 Support Your Local Library Challenge.