The Man in The Brown Suit

The man in the brown suit is the first in a series of books that I'd like to talk about that don’t feature Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple.

I recently re-read this early Agatha Christie book and thoroughly enjoyed it again. It’s full of likeable characters, unlikely co-incidences, narrow escapes from death, intrepid heroes/heroines and an eventful sea voyage to South Africa.

Like ‘The Secret Adversary’, it is a lighthearted romp and makes for very easy reading – one of its early titles (it was originally going to be ‘The Mystery of the Mill House) – was ‘Anna the Adventuress.’

That gives one some idea of sort of tale it is. Agatha Christie considered this last title ‘as silly a title as I had ever heard.’

However, as The Evening News was willing to pay her £500 for the serial rights she agreed. With the money she bought herself a grey bottle-nosed Morris Cowley – the purchase of which she always considered to be one of the two most exciting things in her life. (We’ll talk about the other one elsewhere on the website.)

One of the people in the book - Sir Eustace Pedler, is Agatha Christie’s only attempt to use someone she knew well as the blueprint for a character in a book, and she admits it just didn’t happen.

Although she used this Major Belcher – a sometime friend and business associate of her husband Archie – as a starting point, she soon found that Sir Eustace was taking on a life of his own.

Agatha admits that ‘The Man in The Brown Suit’ was fun to write and I think that shines through.

It you haven’t already read it, give it a go. See following links.

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