Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot it is not. As a fan of Agatha Christie I found this a very big disappointment. Although it has elements of a murder mystery it reads more like a romantic adventure story for teenage girls of the 1920's. Which, I guess, may well have been its target readership. If you can stomach prose such as this:
"His answering fire was more deadly then theirs. I had the rifle loaded when he turned for it. He caught me close with his left arm and kissed me once savagely before he turned to the window again. . . "Anne ! You beauty! You wonder! You little queen! As brave as a lion. Black haired witch!' He caught me in his arms . He kissed my hair, my eyes, my mouth. "And now to business," he said suddenly releasing me. "Get out those tins of paraffin." I did as I was told.";
then maybe you will like it. It is competently written with a tortuous, fast-paced plot. But there was too much of the strong, silent men and pretty, spunky young women for my middle-aged tastes. The back story of revolution in Rhodesia and some description of colonial Africa was intriguing; but largely failed to materialise. It probably needed a John Buchan to give any of that some substance. ( )

i read this when i was 12 and liked it. now it seems really stupid. after finishing it at 12 and loving it (it was my first adult mystery), i lent it to a friend whose mother wouldn't let her read it because of the cover--a woman in a strapless dress being pursued to cliff side by a man in a brown suit(to the best of my memory 50 years later). i can remember my mother saying
" has she never heard of agatha christie?". ( )

It features a plot device beloved of early 20th century writers, the criminal mastermind. It was certainly clichéd after Doyle's Moriarty, (and maybe even earlier) but one shouldn't let it detract too much from the rest of the tale. This story is the first to include Colonel Race, who was to reappear in three more books. Overall, however, I was disappointed. The attitude of the heroine seemed more suited to what I believe is generally referred to as "bodice-ripper" romance novels. Now, I am not myself a peruser of such books, but lines such as

He was detestable--rude and ungrateful--but that I think I understand. It's like a dog that's been chained up--or badly treated--it'll bite anybody. That's what he was like--bitter and snarling. I don't know why I care--but I do. I care horribly. Just seeing him turned my whole life upside-down. I love him. I want him. I'll walk all over Africa barefoot till I find him, and I'll make him care for me. I'd die for him. I'd work for him, slave for him, steal for him, even beg or borrow for him! There--now you know!

(p. 89)

And there's quite a bit more like that. The book is of interest mostly just to see some of Christie's early writing and not so much for the story itself. ( )

This Agatha Christie's 4th novel, and as she did in the first 3, you can see her experimenting with a different style of murder mystery.

In the Prologue, in the dressing room of a Russian dancer in Paris, through a meeting she has with another Russian, we learn 3 things. Firstly neither of them are Russian. Secondly they have both been working for an arch criminal who is on the point of retirement. The "Colonel" has, even during the First World War, organised a series of "stupendous" coups including jewel robberies, forgery, espionage, assassination, and sabotage. Thirdly we learn the story of the theft of some South American diamonds before the war. The dancer knows where these diamonds are and intends to exchange them for some of the "Colonel's" accumulated wealth.

THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT is narrated by two characters. The first, whom we meet in Chapter 1, is Anne Beddingfield. It is she who witnesses the death of a strange-smelling man when he falls off an Underground platform and is electrocuted on the rails. She also sees a man dressed in a brown suit who pretends to be doctor, inspects the body and pronounces the man dead, and then rushes away, dropping a scrap of paper with a cryptic message on it as he does so.

The second narrator is Sir Eustace Pedler MP who keeps a diary. We begin reading extracts from his diary in chapter 8. Inevitably the paths of the two narrators converge. A young woman dies in a house that Sir Eustace owns called Mill House, and he is forced to return from abroad. He is then asked by the British government to travel to South Africa, where he has business interests, to deliver a message in person to the government of Rhodesia.

After that the setting, with all the characters we've met so far, and a few more besides, moves to a ship going to South Africa, and then the action moves to South Africa itself.

I have my reservations about THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT.
I think Agatha Christie tried to move from a murder mystery to a thriller with connections to the world of organised crime, unionism, espionage and romance. The result is a longer book with a lot of time lapses in it, caused mainly by the distances between locations, and the nature of what happens to the first narrator Anne Beddingfield. Some of the scenarios don't quite work and the result is confusion rather than a genuine puzzle for the reader to solv.
Christie tried also to show her awareness of political events in South Africa, and we get occasional mentions of General Smuts thrown into the mix.
And finally, it is a plot where definitions of good and bad are blurred, and in the long run evil goes unpunished.

The book sees the first appearance of Colonel Race; he later appears in Cards on the Table, Sparkling Cyanide, and Death on the Nile.
The Wikipedia entry gives a lot of plot details, reactions of reviewers at the time, including a comment about the fact that she had not used Hercule Poirot, but had in fact introduced another "detective" in the form of Colonel Race. ( )

What can you say in a review about Agatha Christie?? Of course I liked it. I like nearly everything she wrote. However, I did find this book to be different from some of her other books. Usually Christie springs the romance on you at the end of the book - suddenly these two people discover their love and decide to get married. However, in this book the romance goes through almost the entire plot. And of course there is always a dramatic twist at the end of a Christie story. In this book, though, the plot twists didn't surprise me so much. I kinda saw them coming. ;) I wasn't so sure if I liked the romance at the end or not. A part of me was hoping she would end up with a different man. But I enjoyed reading this, as I do all her writings. ( )