Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
I love Anne Beddingfeld.So while this may be titled Colonel Race #1, the main character is most definitely the wonderfully independent Anne Beddingfeld. She's easily one of my favorite Agatha Christie heroines.If I had to describe her in one word it would be plucky.Which is such an underused word these days, you know? Let's bring that one back. Anyway, Anne isn't rich but she manages to make her way through the world just fine. Thank you very much.So, where does Colonel Race come into this? Well...
Before there was Miss Jane Marple and very shortly after the birth of Hercule Poirot, there was Anne Beddingfield, the plucky heroine of The Man in the Brown Suit. Dame Agatha Christie included Hercule Poirot in 45 books and Miss Jane Marple in more than a dozen. Even Tommy and Tuppence Beresford appear in four novels and a collection of short stories. But Jane Beddingfield appears only in The Man in the Brown Suit (although another character in this novel, the debonair Colonel Race, went on to
In the spirit of Read All the Christies, I ordered this after seeing it in someone's feed. Could have been my mood, but I found that it didn't sustain my interest. I've been reading Christie for a long time, so it's not like I opened it with expectations of heart-pumping action. I'd say I gave the first seventy or so pages a solid effort, but it never really caught me. Part of it was definitely as Miriam noted in her review, that of connection with the lead, a young woman who wants 'adventure.'
So as with all of the non Poirot/Marple books written by Agatha Christie, I hadn't read this before and had no knowledge of the plot. That said I was familiar with one of the main characters, the ex army, secret service man Colonel Race.This book is based around the daughter of a palaeontology professor who yearns for adventures, and how on the death of her father sets out with little money but a heart full of determination to achieve her goal.At that point unbeknownst to her, a criminal masterm...
4.5 Stars - If it weren't for the elements that get introduced later in the story that require serious CWs for colonialism, racial stereotypes, & intimations of intimate partner violence, I'd have given this the full 5 stars. This book just rang all the bells for me of what I love in a Christie... great tone, memorable characters, fun mystery plot, and strong evocation of time/place. This is the best action adventure type mystery I've read from Christie. I wish the "of its time" elements weren't...
The first in the Colonel Race series, the story began on an intriguing note with a very cryptic discussion about double crossing a spy. We then flip to meeting Anne Bedingfield who becomes involved in the intrigue after witnessing an incident that could be tied to a recent murder. Soon Anne is on a ship bound for South Africa with a host of different characters. One of them being Colonel Race and the other being Sir Eustace Pedler whose diary entries break up Anne's narrative.This was a slow bu...
It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.My first encounter with Agathie Christie's work was not a disappointment - although, perhaps, it is not one of her most popular books, it was certainly an enjoyable entry into this genre. Think Africa and diamonds and adventure and mystery - welcome to 'The Man in The Brown Suit'. What I liked: ✔︎-The fact that it was set in South Africa. Everybody's heard the famous sa...
This first book of the Colonel Race series, like that of the first book of the Tommy and Tuppence series, is a thriller than a mystery. It starts on a mystery note, then, scales on to a thriller. First and foremost, this is not a typical Christie book, at least not one I'm used to expecting of her. I've known her as the "queen of the mystery". :) But now, I know that she had written few thrillers in her earlier days, and I've read two of them including The Man in the Brown Suit. Her thrillers ar...
Forget the mystery, forget the complex scheme hatched by a mysterious criminal mastermind, Agatha Christie’s ‘The Man in the Brown Suit’ is really a spoof. Written in 1924 it has the suspense serial, the kind with feisty, flapper heroines at their centre, directly in its sights. But hang on, it's more than that: this was actually written in serialised form as ‘Anne the Adventuress’ and so right from the off it is both satirising the over the top adventure story whilst wholeheartedly being one.We...
4.5*“I had the firm conviction that, if I went about looking for adventure, adventure would meet me halfway. It is a theory of mine that one always gets what one wants.”The Man in the Brown Suit, or Anna the Adventurous, was published as a serial in 1923, and is completely over the top! Instead of our ‘usual’ detective story, we have a thriller, involving an international crime organisation with a secret arch-villain at its head, although there is of course murder and mystery. All starts with ou...
This is one of Agatha Christie's best stand alone novels - part mystery, part thriller and part espionage story - which takes us from a London tube station to revolution in Africa. It begins with Anne Beddingfeld, the daughter of a professor who longs for adventure. She spends her day trying to placate creditors and longing to 'step out' with a young man. When her father dies, she takes an opportunity to go to London, where, quite by chance, she witnesses the death of a young man at a tube stati...
My first Christie without Poirot or Marple and I still enjoyed it, much to my surprise. Anne was a feisty, independent minded protagonist. She was a bit of an insta detective though. A good range of supporting characters. It was also interesting to read about South Africa and Rhodesia: contemporary fiction at the time, and now historical fiction. You wouldn’t know that this is one of Christie’s earlier novels.
Below average Agatha ChristieReview of Kindle editionPublication date: January 2, 2020Publisher: AmazonClassicsLanguage: EnglishASIN: B07ZH6HD1MAmazon.com Sales Rank: 1552271 pagesThis early Agatha Christie novel was published in 1924 between the introductions of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. It reads as though Christie had not yet hit her stride as a mature mystery author. In fact THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT is not strictly a mystery. Instead, it is a rather tame adventure/thriller/romance nove...
A great read. As always, Christie is a master of the crime/detective genre, managing to make this a fun and exciting romp without decreasing any of the mystery and sense of the sinister. All of the characters had their own charms, but Colonel Race really made the book, even though he seemed to stay in the backdrop a lot of the time. I must say I felt rather sorry for his lack of luck with Anne, but I'm looking forward to revisiting his character in the later books. Anne, although not the most li...
One of Christie’s earlier novels. Just like most of her stories during the early 1920’s, this is more of an adventure thriller than the traditional Whodunnit that you’d associate with her.Young Anne Beddingfeld is looking for adventure, when she witnesses what seems to appear as an accidental death on the London Underground it soon leads her travelling to South Africa.I really loved the set up of this novel, it felt so familiar to many of Christie’s other novels. I was instantly hooked on the my...