The Man in the Brown Suit/The Secret of Chimneys

Title: The Man in the Brown Suit/The Secret of Chimneys

Author: Agatha Christie

Publication Year: 1924, 1925

Pages: 232 each

Genre: Mystery

Count for Year: 6, 7

How I discovered

I have joined Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise with her Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and these are the third and fourth books that Christie wrote and third and fourth in that challenge. Like the last ones, I don’t believe I have read this one previously.

The setup

How odd, Anne Beddingfeld thought, that the stranger caught her eye, recoiled in horror, and fell to his death on the rails of Hyde Park Underground Station. Odder still was a doctor in a brown suit who pronounced him dead and vanished into the crowd. But what really aroused Anne’s suspicion was when she learned of the doctor’s link to the murder of a famous ballerina, a fortune in hidden diamonds, and a crime-lord embroiled in blackmail. And most frightening of all was the attempt made on Anne’s own life. But she is unable to resist the lure of an isolated mansion that could hold the solution to the bizarre mystery–even if she becomes the next victim…

The Man in the Brown Suit, synopsis from Barnes & Noble

A bit of adventure and quick cash is all that good-natured drifter Anthony Cade is looking for when he accepts a messenger job from an old friend. It sounds so simple: deliver the provocative memoirs of a recently deceased Eurpoean count to a London publisher. But the parcel holds more than scandalous royal secrets. It contains a stash of letters that suggest blackmail and lead to the murder of a stranger who’s been shadowing Anthony’s every move. Discovering the dead man’s identity means retracing his steps to the rambling estate of Chimneys where darker secrets, and deadlier threats, await anyone who dares to enter.

The Secret of Chimneys, synopsis from Barnes & Noble

I’ve read both of these within the last few weeks and since they were similar in nature, dealing with international espionage, I decided to include a review of both together here.

In The Man in the Brown Suit, Christie introduces to yet another character, Anne Beddingfield, daughter of a recently deceased archaelogist, and in The Secret of Chimneys, she introduces us to another detective, Superintendent Battle.

Like Tommy and Tuppence previously, the characters here and the story are on the lighter side and unlike later Hercule Poirot cases that I remember reading are dealt with in a less serious manner. Beddingfield compares herself early on in The Man in The Brown Suit to a fictional “The Perils of Pamela,” which sounds similar to “The Perils of Pauline,” a 1914 serial, and I believe it is in this spirit that this novel should be taken.

It reminded me forcibly of Episode III in “The Perils of Pamela.” How often had I not sat in the sixpenny seats, eating a twopenny bar of milk chocolate and yearning for similar things to happen to me. Well, they had happened with a vengeance. And somehow it was nearly as amusing as I had imagined. But in real life, there was absolutely no guarantee that Anna the Adventuress might not terminate abruptly at the end of any Episode.

Also readers of Christie’s previous works also are reintroduced to the theme of adventure as in Tommy and Tuppence.

In The Secret of Chimneys, Christie establishes the light tone of the novel even after a murder occurs with the first two detectives on the scene:

“It is, Johnson. One of his lordship’s guests, a foreign gentleman, discovered shot. Open window, and footprints outside.”

“I’m sorry, it were a foreigner,” said Johnson with some regret.

It made the murder seem less real. Foreigners, Johnson felt, were liable to be shot.

While both of these novels are on the lighter side, I believe the second one succeeds a little bit more than the first one. Perhaps I think in the first one, the story, with all its expected red herrings as Christie is apt to do, is just too unbelievable and also perhaps too romantic for my taste. The second one, The Secret of Chimneys, meanwhile, while silly at times, seems to me to be more believable within the context of the novel. It’s not that it’s not silly, but it is easier for at least this reader to go along with the story than in the first one. Also in the first one, Beddingfield splits time in telling the story with Sir Eustace Pedler, another character, and doesn’t work for me. I guess I’m old school like that and want one perspective — at least in my Agatha Christie mysteries and at least as she is just starting out and isn’t a seasoned writer as she would become.

For those reasons, I give The Man in the Brown Suit a 3 out of 5, but The Secret of Chimneys a 4 out of 5. If you have to choose between reading one or the other, my opinion is to go with the latter, especially if you want to add to your Agatha Christie collection.

My rating system: 

5- Classic, must read

4- Worth owning a copy

3- Worth picking up at library

2- Worth skimming at the bookstore

1- Worth being a doorstop