The Man in the Brown Suit
Book Talk #18
I have been on a bit of an Agatha Christie kick lately. I reread them, turning to my favorites, all the time and lately, I have been realizing that I don't remember her later novels that well. Most of them I've only read once, despite having read my favorites over and over, mostly because they just aren't as good to read as her earlier writing. I enjoy those early country house types of mysteries and as Christie got older her writing became less consistent. She wrote about places, situations and times that she perhaps didn't understand as an elderly lady. For example, in her novel Third Girl, her portrayal of young women in the 1960s seemed a little off to me when I read it many years ago. I’m going to re-read it soon, I haven’t ever done so, to see if I still think that.
These past few weeks I have re-read Endless Night (better than I remember), Elephants Can Remember (not great but entertaining), After the Funeral (I liked this one even though it is highly improbable), and Crooked House (not a fan, every character annoyed me).
Today, in the interest of lighthearted fun, I would like to share with you one of my very favorite novels of Dame Agatha’s, The Man In The Brown Suit. This book was published in August of 1924 by The Bodley Head and then later in 1924 Dodd Mead published it here in the United States. It is her fourth novel and it is not a detective story, there's no Monsieur Poirot and no Miss Marple, It is pure thriller and adventure.
Two things make this novel unique in the Christie Canon, first it is one of only two of her novels that are written in a first-person narrative from a female point of view. The other one is Murder in Mesopotamia. In that novel Nurse Amy Leatheran narrates reluctantly. She makes very clear in the opening chapter that she is a nurse and not a writer but that point of view in that novel is part of what makes it successful despite the wildly untenable motive for the murder. Nurse Leatheran narrates the story from a more professional, medical point of view and is a complete outsider which makes her observations very valuable.
Back to the Brown Suit. This novel is narrated predominately by Anne Beddingfeld but there is another narrator who pops in there occasionally, Sir Eustace Peddler, and his curmudgeonly point of view fills me with delight. He is as cranky as I would be on a ship with all of this nonsense happening around him. This two person narrative is a device Christie used later in the ABC Murders, Five Little Pigs, and The Pale Horse.
The second thing that makes this unique is that the murder sets off the events but isn't central to the plot of the novel. It's the instigator for the story but the solving of the murder isn't the actual plot. So it can’t be considered a detective novel but is classified as one of her thriller novels, and the best one in my opinion because it is a very enjoyable read, the characters are well constructed and the mystery is a surprise. The last chapter was excellent. Many people, myself included are a little sad that there are not more novels that feature Anne Beddingfeld.
Much of the novel is set on a ship going sailing to South Africa and the climax of the book takes place in Johannesburg. This draws on Agatha Christie's experience traveling with her first husband Archie Christie who was a business manager for the round-the-world trip of a Major Belcher. Can you believe that that was an actual job in the 1920s? He was a manager of a trip, which he was paid to plan and go along on, bringing his wife. It was a ten-month-long trip whose purpose was to promote the British Empire Exhibition taking place in London. Nice work if you can get it.
Major Belcher and Agatha became friends on this long trip and he asked her to put him in a book and to make him the murderer. Belcher believed that the murderer is always the most interesting person in a crime novel and, he asked Christie to call the book Mystery at Mill House which was the name of his own house. She created the character of Sir Eustace with some of Belcher's characteristics to please him and dedicated the novel to him.
This is the first novel in which Colonel Race appears, later we meet him in Cards on the Table, Sparkling Cyanide, and Death on the Nile, where we learn he is close friends with Poirot and they have worked together before.
Race is a distant cousin of Sir Lawrence Eardsley, whose son John we meet in the novel. Sir Laurence was a wealthy South African mining magnate who recently passed away. Race works for the British government as a spy. I don't know if it was called MI5 back then but you get the impression that he is a bigwig in that type of organization. He also has a reputation as a big game hunter and a wealthy man.
The story opens with Anne Beddingfield witnessing a man being pushed onto the line in a tube station and retrieving a piece of paper dropped by the doctor who jumps in to help him. Of course, the poor man is beyond help and that piece of paper leads Anne to the Mill House, Christie did manage to work in the Mill House for Major Belcher. Adventures at the Mill House eventually lead to her getting on a ship to South Africa. On board the ship she meets Colonel Race, Sir Eustace, and Suzanne Blair, a society lady who befriends Anne and joins the adventures, to a point.
For me, the chemistry between these four is what makes this novel delightful. Again, I was particularly a fan of Sir Eustace.
This is a very romantic novel and not just because there is a romance, because there is, a typical Christie lover’s triangle, but also because the setting, the era, and the action all evoke the kind of romance we've come to expect from an Indiana Jones movie.
If you are in the house of an evening waiting for spring to come you could not have better company than this novel. I highly recommend it.
There is a made for TV. adaptation of this book. I have not seen it since it is not available streaming anywhere and the DVD is expensive. Most of these adaptations are totally unwatchable so I am not interested in spending the money. I may see if the library has a copy. I mean, it has Rue MclCanahan in it. I can’t think of her as anything but Blanche Devereaux.
Speaking of adaptations Toward Zero has been released in Great Britian and will be available in the US on Britbox on April 16th. I am looking forward to this, it is getting good reviews from true Christie fans and is supposed to be faithful to the book, which is rare in these situations.
Tomorrow begins the Lenten season for Catholics. I will be praying for all of my subscribers during this season of fasting and almsgiving. Please let me know if there are any specific prayer requests I can hold for you, it would be a privilege to do so.
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God bless!