The Man in the Brown Suit: 100th Anniversary Retrospective

A review of an early Agatha Christie thriller "The Man in the Brown Suit", celebrating its centennial anniversary in 2024.

[@coffemuse]

When I read this as a naive child/teen, I loved it without irony or apology. I can see its over-the-top campiness now, but I still think of it fondly. As for Colonel Race, whenever he appears in a novel it always feels as if I'm supposed to know much more about him than I do, as if I've missed something. He's introduced like, here's our old friend Colonel Race! Readers rejoice! But I feel as if I never really got an introduction to him.

[@summationgathering]

This is actually one of the last - if not the last - Christie novels I read for the first time so I think a lot of the Colonel Race red herring stuff just didn't work for me and I think that probably stuck with me on subsequent readings. But I have no affection for Colonel Race at all.

[@notdeadjustyet8136]

Thank you ❤ This is one of the novels I read when I was 9 or 10 and I remember it at all. Gonna reread it ❤

[@summationgathering]

Either this one or Why Didn't They Ask Evans was the last Agatha Christie novel I read for the first time.

[@the-panda-lives]

Like the other commenters, I read this book ages ago and have never returned to it, so your commentary was a great summary of the novel. I love how much of Agatha's own life she put into this story, like the sea sickness and basing the character of Sir Eustace on a real life travelling companion (Major Belcher, I think?) from on the British Empire Exhibition Tour in 1922. She talks about this in detail in her autobiography.

[@summationgathering]

This is probably one of the most "inspired by real events' Christie novel.

[@deboracopeland4795]

Always a pleasure to see your videos.

[@summationgathering]

Thank you!

[@Sebastian-lw5qb]

It's quite a while ago, when I read this novel for the last time, but I remember enjoying Sir Eustace, Suzanne and Guy Pagett as characters. Colonel Race is okay in this one. I think he probably works better as a character in here, when you know nothing about him and therefore can consider him a viable suspect. Death on the Nile was among the first three Christie novels I read, and I saw the Ustinov movie even earlier. So I know Race was innocent, which had the unfortunate side effect of limiting the pretty small suspect pool even more and takes away something of Race's possible ambiguity. He's one of my least favourite Christie detectives in general, but this is probably his best appearance. In Sparkling Cyanide, he's completely useless. And other than making the number of detectives rise to four bridge players, he's useless in Cards on the Table as well. I do think he sort of works in Death on the Nile, because Poirot needs someone to interact with and share his ideas. So that's his second favourite appearance for me, but relatively speaking.

[@summationgathering]

He's at least relevant to the plot in The Man in the Brown Suit while in those other novels, he feels completely extra and unnecessary. He also does this weird thing where he disappears halfway through some novels and you don't even remember he was there.

[@DaleRibbons]

As far as Colonel Race goes, he never made much of an impression on me. I liked him in 'Death On The Nile' but he was basically just there for Poirot to bounce ideas off of. I think it's telling that they cut his character out of the TV movie version of 'Sparkling Cyanide', and it made no difference to the plot.

[@summationgathering]

This seems to be the general consensus. Race also has a weird habit of disappearing for large portions of the novels as if Christie forgot he was there.

[@nethansingbeil356]

This was an interesting read for me. Sir Eustace, Anne, and Suzanne were my favorite characters, closely followed by Guy Pagett. I thought the twist in this one (if it can be considered a bit of twist) was pulled off well, though I did guess it by the midway point of the novel. Still, while the characters and plot earned it a 4/5 from me, these thriller type novels are never my favorite, though this ranks as the highest of those types.

[@summationgathering]

I'd probably give it 3.5/5 if I were doing numerical ratings. I forgot how much fun this book and its characters were until I reread it.