Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Valentine, October 10, 2002
"The Man in the Brown Suit" is a drab title for Ms. Christie's most romantic novel. It is interesting to see what type of girl (Ann Beddelfield) is Dame Agatha's ideal: well born, raised by her academic father but not devoted to him, beautiful and aware of it, uses her many charms to get her way, intelligent but wildly impractical, idealistic, adventurous and believes in that knight in shining armor will come and carry her away.Ann is deeply afraid she will end up in a rut forever as an underpaid secretary only to marry a ho-hum businessman and while away her life. Her father's meager inheritance, 87 pounds, even in 1924 money, will not see her far. She impulsively buys a ticket to South Africa that costs exactly 87 pounds, hoping for adventure. The subsequent story exceeds her wildest dreams with mysterious deaths, kidnapping, diamonds and Russian ballet dancers. Miss Christie has some excellent descriptive scenes of South Africa. It is clear the author is in love with the landscape, the mystery and the vivid life of the area. I never quite got in the spirit of the "adventure," as I worried incessantly (seeing as Ann would not) over what she was going to use for money once she stepped off the boat. The book does not contain a master sleuth, so it is not a case of one grand mystery, but a series of small mysteries solved as you go. There were so many subplots, I lost all sight of the main purpose, but was agreeable if confused. "The Man in the Brown Suit" is a departure for Christie, one I'm glad she did not make too often. However, it is a good natured, high-spirited romp, and I am sure she had a grand time writing it. 3-1/2 stars.
-sweetmolly- Amazon Reviewer
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Christie's lighter side, July 27, 2002
This was one of Christie's earlier novels, but one of her most entertaining. It's pure brain candy, full of wit and adventure, with an appealing, intelligent heroine of the kind found in P.G. Wodehouse books of this period, and, later on, in the mysteries of Elizabeth Peters. Anne makes some nice points about the difficulties of the usual cinematic methods of freeing oneself when bound and dumped in a cellar. She also eats an extraordinary number of ice-cream sodas and collects native art to interesting effect. Oh, yes, and there are some murders and stolen diamonds involved.An advantage to the light tone, aside from its sheer entertainment value, is that it makes the reader a little more forgiving of Christie's stretches of credibility, which especially in some of her middle period novels can be a bit much. Not that I don't love her novels. But in some there is an almost palpable sense one kind of talent trying to be another...in "Endless Night", for example, she's rather clumsily dealing with the kind of psychological issues that writers like Thomas Harris would take up. This book, however, is Christie at her brightest and most appealing, and shows the facility with plot which would develop into one of the greatest gifts for story-construction that English literature has ever known.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW!, July 7, 2000
I think this is one of the BEST work of myatery by Agatha Christie. Not only was the plot intriguing, the murderer (murderess?) was totally unexpected. I mean, in ALL her books, the murderer is unexpected, but I usually guess who it is. (I'm not boasting!)But in this book, I HAD my theories as to who the murderer was, but when I learnt who the real person was.. I was stunned! OK, I think I've said enough. Time for you to read it yourself & find out.
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