The Man in the Brown Suit & Crooked House

Two Best-Selling Agatha Christie Novels in One Great Audiobook

By: Agatha Christie

Narrated by: Emilia Fox, Hugh Fraser

Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Two best-selling Agatha Christie novels in one great audiobook.

The Man in the Brown Suit is Agatha Christie at her best, as a young woman makes a dangerous decision to investigate a shocking “accidental” death she witnesses at a London tube station.

Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her - and finds her immediately at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Anne is present on the platform when a thin man, reeking of mothballs, loses his balance and is electrocuted on the rails.

The Scotland Yard verdict is accidental death. But Anne is not satisfied. After all, who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body? And why did he race off, leaving a cryptic message behind: "17-122 Kilmorden Castle"?

Now a feature film from Sony Pictures starring Christina Hendricks, Gillian Anderson, and Glenn Close.

Described by the Queen of Mystery herself as one of her favorites of her published works, Crooked House is a classic Agatha Christie thriller revolving around a devastating family mystery.

The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.

Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, 50 years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of the late millionaire’s granddaughter.

“Writing Crooked House was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best.” (Agatha Christie)

©2020 Agatha Christie (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Excellent Readers

I'll always listen to Hugh Fraser or Emilia Fox. They both have excellent voices. Perfect for Agatha Christie.

talented

I love how one voice actor or actress can convey so many characters. Turkey talented

Two excellent books!

The mysteries are hard guesses and fun. Clearly Crooked House laid out the initial plot for the film Knives Out, but this is so much better.

Hugh Fraser is fantastic, as always

Unfortunately the man in the brown suit was spoiled because Emilia Fox is terrible. I couldn't listen to her character voices.

Loved Crooked House.

Crooked House was much more interesting than The Man in the Brown Suit. Both endings were good but overall Crooked was best.

Excellent

I think there’s a common misconception that Agatha Christie’s domestic mysteries were all “cozy,” due to the lack of gore or sex in her novels. But “Crooked House,” a novel she herself considered one of her best, shows how hard edged her domestic mysteries really could be.

My favorite of her novels, “Crooked House” and “Nemesis,” both have a sense of real, human evil in them; a dreadful amorality that could be pulled as easily from modern headlines. That Christie saw this capacity for amorality within common domestic settings was part of her genius.

“Crooked House” stands the test of time and still delivers a punch to the midsection in the end.

By contrast, “The Man in the Brown Suit” is far more rollicking and adventurous. It’s more dated, but still a fun read.

I enjoyed both narrators, and found them each well suited to their respective novels.

Highly recommended versions of both of these unabridged novels.

One of two

I struggled to stay involved in The Man in the Brown Suit because of the narrator. However, Crooked House was very engaging.

Crooked House was Fine; Man in the Brown Suit not

Man in the Brown suit was awful and hard to get through. Racist dated slurs, and long winded chase scenes that felt uncharacteristic of Christie. Crooked House was fine, still not my favorite.