The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha ChristieMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anne Beddingfeld is a fun main character, a young woman who is determined to find adventure and of course, a dashing man. So when her paleoanthropologist father kicks the bucket, she packs up her few possessions & pounds and heads to London. Goodreads tells me that this is a Colonel Race novel, but he seems like a secondary character here, rather unfair of Christie. He's a good character, but somehow she lavished her attention on Poirot!
Christie's espionage novels are so entertaining—totally unbelievable, but carried out with such enthusiasm. While reading this one, I thought of M.M. Kaye's Death in … series, published in the 1950s, they could have been modelled on this novel. I was also reminded a bit of Ian Fleming's Diamonds Are Forever, probably mostly because of the diamond angle, and because I know that Fleming was an admirer of Christie's writing.
At least in this novel, Anne gets to spend some time getting to know the man that she has set her heart on rather impulsively. In Kaye's novels (and, frankly, Mary Stewart's) the young women trust far too easily and too soon, committing to men with whom they are barely acquainted. I did like Anne's bravery, even if it did seem foolhardy at times. Really, sailing to South Africa with just a few bucks in her purse!
It was also fun to be reminded of some spots in South Africa that I visited a few years ago. The dusty, hot Karoo and the Kimberley, for instance. All in all, an entertaining couple of evening's reading.
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You must remember that this was written in 1924, Agatha hadn't hit her famous stride yet. She hadn't written Ackroyd yet. She may have had other main characters in mind.
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