• The Man in the Brown Suit

  • By: Agatha Christie
  • Narrated by: Emilia Fox
  • Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (276 ratings)

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The Man in the Brown Suit  By  cover art

The Man in the Brown Suit

By: Agatha Christie
Narrated by: Emilia Fox
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Publisher's summary

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"?

©1924 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

What listeners say about The Man in the Brown Suit

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    180
  • 4 Stars
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Performance
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Started out great

...with some really fun characters, but then it just started to ramble, losing the fine construction most Christie mysteries are known for, and soon became more of a steamy romance novel than a detective mystery. I finished it but had lost interest in it long before the last chapter.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

awful narration of male voices

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

The only readers who might like this story are those who have a goal of listening to every Agatha Christie novel available. This one is a girl's own adventure, written with a running commentary about what similar heroines in the movies would do. It is not one the author's better efforts.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The theme of the bold, unprotected young woman off on an adventure to South Africa and what was then Rhodesia by rail and steamship had some moments, but the author 's approach of relating the story through the journal entries of two of the characters was ineffective and at times annoying.

How could the performance have been better?

Novels read by a single author almost always suffer a bit when the narrator does characters of the opposite sex. I have had listen to some pretty strange woman's voices when male narrators lack the ability to do female voices adequately. But this female narrator's efforts to perform the male parts of this novel were the worst screechings I have ever heard. She tried to mimic a "gruff" male voice for the journal entries of a male character that constitute almost half the novel. The result was terrible. This is a bit surprising because her voices and readings for the female characters were generally good. But I tried to get though this audiobook twice and couldn't stick it out to the end either time because the male voices were so bad. Perhaps the narrator should compare her performance to Joan Hickson's narration of a Miss Marple novel. Hickson does not try to imitate a male voice; she just uses a small variation in order to indicate a male voice. Likewise, male narrators who use a slightly higher voice for a female character instead of a falsetto seem to me much successful. After all, this is narration of a novel, not a one-person radio drama. Most readers accept the difference and buy accordingly. Few narrators are talented enough to correctly mimic a wide range of male and female voices, and this narrator is not the exception. The narrator could do much better. She simply has taken utterly the wrong approach in this performance, given her skills and quality of voice.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Man in the Brown Suit?

A good editor/producer would have prevented the narrator from using such an unsuccessful approach to narrating the male voices in the novel.

Any additional comments?

I see there are several more Agatha Christie novels read by this narrator. I hope someone has prevented her from taking the same disastrous approach to male voices in those audiobooks as she did in this one.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Too much

This just seemed a bit too much. A combination of the narration and writing, the characters were so trite and cloying. Simple adventurous girl, mysterious man, daring police, and conniving villain all on a boat to Africa.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Boring title- FANTASTIC STORY! New favorite book!

This book has a really terrible title but, after passing it over for years, I finally gave it a chance and I am so glad that I did! It’s the perfect combination of mystery, adventure, and sweet romance! With a charming, feisty female protagonist, an excellently-developed set of characters, surprising villains, and a very sweet love story (AND without any gore or off-putting “bodice ripping”) this is-in my opinion- the ideal mystery story and one of Agatha Christie’s best works! It’s my new favorite book (and that’s saying quite a lot because I’ve had the same favorite book for over a decade!) and I’m sure it will become yours, too! With new surprises and twists on every page, this book is absolutely un-pausable!! Do yourself a favor and listen now!!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Best of Christie!

By far one of my favorite Christie books! A happy adventure with no real tragedy. :)

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

I just couldn't finish this.

I just couldn't finish this book. I wanted to like it, but as soon as it got to the Anne and Harry bit it just got too unpleasantly cliched. I don't know why the heroine has to have a man to save her. ugghh.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Prototypic Christie

I enjoyed the story but didn't care for some of the voices employed by the narrator for different characters.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Tedious listening - terrible narration of an overlong story

I am a huge AC fan, having listened to most of her work. I had a hard time getting through this one. The main problem was the narration. Ms. Fox simply cannot do male voices. So she uses growling. Many chapters are the words from a man’s diary spoken by him and so you are forced to hear this growling for 20 or 30 minutes each time his chapter comes up. Ugh. Hearing her gruff growling churn on and on was excruciating. She even made the dashing male love interest sound like a gruff coal miner. She also is a very slow reader dragging out sentences tediously. Unfortunately this story is already too long and convoluted making the listen a chore rather than a pleasure. I will never listen to another book read by Ms. Fox. I am sure that Hugh would have made this a much more enjoyable book.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Happy Ending

I was worried about it having a happy ending because...well it's Agatha Christie after all..
buy it does! I am so relieved l. Such a good book!

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Barely entertaining

Although Agatha Christie is one of my favorite mystery writer, I was a little disappointed with this book. The main character is not interesting at all and you can easily spot the killer on the first chapters. The performance of the voice actor is remarkable, that is the reason I rate this book with 3 stars.

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