The man in the brown suit
The Man in the Brown Suit (AKA The Man in the Brown Suit ) is the fourth mystery novel by Agatha Christie . It first appeared in the UK on August 22, 1924 with The Bodley Head and a little later that year in the US with Dodd, Mead and Company . The German first edition was published in 1963 by Scherz Verlag in the translation by Margret Haas, which is still used today.
introduction
As in A Dangerous Adversary , the novel focuses less on the actual investigation and is structured like a thriller . He follows the adventures of Anne Beddingfeld, who after the death of her father finds herself in the world of diamond thieves, murderers and political intrigues in the most exotic locations in South Africa. Colonel Race made his first appearance in this novel . The reader meets him again later in With Open Cards , Prussic Acid and Death on the Nile .
action
After the death of her father, an archaeologist , Anne Beddingfeld is completely destitute. She lived in the country all her life. Now she wants to build a new life of her own in London. Coming back from an unsuccessful job interview, she stands on the platform of the Hyde Park Corner subway station . She is facing a man, who looks over her shoulder and is so frightened that he stumbles, falls onto the rails and is killed. A doctor is on the spot immediately, but can only determine death. The doctor suddenly disappears, but loses a small piece of paper. Anne picks up the note. It says: 17. 122 Kilmorden Castle.
The official version of the death of the stranger identified as LB Carton is suicide. In his pocket is a license from a real estate agent for a rental property - The Mill House in Marlow. The next day, the newspapers reported that a dead woman was found in this house - strangled. The house belongs to Member of Parliament Sir Eustace Pedler, who is on vacation on the French Riviera .
Anne was a nurse during the war, so she now notices that the "doctor" did not examine the dead man as she knew the doctors from the war did. She decides to visit Scotland Yard , but their descriptions are not taken seriously there. She then meets with Lord Naseby, editor of the Daily Budget newspaper. He offers her, if she finds out anything interesting about the suicide in the subway, to publish it in his newspaper. After fruitless investigations in Mill House Anne finds out that Kilmorden Castle is the name of a ship that on 17 January 1922 by Southampton , with the aim Cape Town is set to expire. With the money from her father's inheritance, which corresponds to the exact fare, she books a passage on this ship.
On board, Anne makes the acquaintance of other passengers. Also on the ship is Sir Eustace Pedler, who has been hired by the government to bring a confidential document to General Smuts in South Africa. He turns out to be a criminal diamond smuggler who, taking advantage of his position, commits serious crimes on an international level and on a large scale. After numerous entanglements, in which the plot hits some hooks, John Eardsley and Colonel Race can bring down Sir Eustace as the perpetrator and mastermind. John and Anne get married and move to an island in the Zambezi , while Colonel Race manages the family's fortunes and estates.
Persons in The Man in the Brown Suit
- Anne Beddingfeld, the orphaned daughter of Professor Beddingfeld, a famous archaeologist
- John Eardsley, son of Sir Laurence Eardsley, a South African mining magnate, aka Harry Rayburn
- Colonel Johnny Race, a distant cousin of Sir Laurence Eardsley
- Suzanne Blair, a lady of the better society - a society lady
- Sir Eustace Pedler, Member of Parliament, aka 'The Colonel', a criminal mastermind
- Guy Pagett, Sir Eustace Pedler's secretary
- Anita Grünberg alias Nadina alias Mrs. de Castina - former agent of the 'Oberst'
- Arthur Minks aka Pastor Edward Chichester aka Miss Pettigrew aka Count Sergius Paulovitch - an agent of the 'Colonel'
- Harry Lucas, friend of John Eardsley, died in the war
- Mr. Flemming, attorney, and his wife, Anne's guardian after the death of their father
- LB Carton, husband of Anita Grünberg and victim at Hyde Park Corner underground station.
- Inspector Meadows from Scotland Yard
- Lord Naseby, owner of the Daily Budget and Anne's boss
- A red-bearded Dutchman, an agent of the 'Colonel'
- Mrs. Caroline James, wife of the gardener at Mill House.
Reviews
Critic reactions to this novel have been mixed. Was criticized especially the excursion of the author into the trashy-like thriller genre and the absence of the master detective Hercule Poirot. Christie's writing skills and humor were, however, unanimously praised. "The Man in the Brown Suit" is one of Christie's less successful novels.
The Times Literary Supplement reviewed this novel in its September 25, 1924 edition. Criticism emphasizes the “thriller-with-adventure” style of the book and concludes: "The author asks so many questions to the reader in her story, questions which he can only answer wrongly, and even the most experienced reader of novels will lose the right course and not reach the port, hindered by quicksand, blood, diamonds, secret services, changing identities, kidnapping and violence that keep the secret ".
The unknown author in The Observer of September 7, 1924, says that “Miss Christie did a bold and unfortunate thing in this book. She did without Hercule Poirot , her own Sherlock Holmes , whose presence, good nature and infallibility made the success of her earlier books in the first place. ”After comparing Poirot to Harry Rayburn, the author continues by saying that the book “Will disappoint those who remember The Missing Link . One can almost assume that Miss Christie swapped Conan Doyle's coat for Miss Ethel M. Dell's ; a dangerous maneuver, because the two authors are very different in taste and sympathy. ”The author continues, noting that“ the plot of the book is a bit confusing. There is also a prologue that has long had no connection with the rest of the story; and the idea of presenting the passages alternately through the heroine and Sir Eustace Pedler's diary is justified overall, it gives the whole thing an entertaining, but also disreputable character. At one point, some readers will have their doubts: the plausibility of the perpetrator, he is certainly new in this role. Like all of Miss Christie's works, the book is written with a spirit and a sense of humor. "
Autobiographical references
The book has some parallels to events on the world tour that Christie and her first husband Archibald Christie took under the guidance of his former teacher at Clifton College, Major EA Belcher. Belcher was traveling on behalf of the British government to promote the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 and had hired Archibald Christie as an assistant. The trip lasted from January 20, 1922 to December 1, 1922. On this trip, Christie wrote most of the short stories that were later published as Poirot Settling and The Labor of Hercules . Before the trip, the Christies were invited to dinner at Belcher's. He suggested that she write a detective novel set in his home, Mill House, called "The Secret of Mill House" - and he insisted. Belcher is the inspiration for the central character of Sir Eustace Pedler, but the title was changed at the request of Christie's husband. The Mill House also appears, but it has been moved to Marlow.
Christie found Belcher "childish, significant and somehow manic as a person: 'Never, until today, have I been able to break free of a creeping fondness for Sir Eustace," wrote Christie of the fictional Belcher aka Sir Eustace, whom she called "The Man in the Brew." Suit ”set a monument. I know that is reprehensible, but it is so. ”From Anne Beddingfeld's remarks at the end of the novel, one can see Christie's ambivalent relationship to the main character.
Important English and German language editions
- 1924 UK first edition John Lane (The Bodley Head), 22nd August 1924
- 1924 first edition USA Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1924,
- 1963 German first edition in the translation by Margret Haas. Bern, Stuttgart, Vienna: joke
Audio books
- 2007 The man in the brown suit 3 CDs: abridged reading. Abridged version by Michelene Wandor. Translated from the English by Tanja Handels. Read by Susanne Schröder and Rainer Bock. Director: Toni Nirschl. The Hörverlag (Munich).
Film adaptations
The Man in the Brown Suit (1988)
The book was adapted as a television film in 1988 by Alan Shayne Productions in association with Warner Brothers Television . The adaptation moves the plot from the 1920s to the present, which leads to major changes compared to the original.
dedication
Christie's dedication in the book reads:
- "To EAB In memory of a trip, some stories about lions and a request that one day I write the 'Secret of Mill House'."
EAB is Major EA Belcher (see Autobiographical References above).
Web links
- The Man in the Brown Suit on the official Agatha Christie website
- Film adaptation in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Curran, John. Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks (Page 260). HarperCollins , 2009. ISBN 978-0-00-731056-2
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ↑ a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ The Times Literary Supplement September 25, 1924 (Page 598)
- ↑ The Observer September 7, 1924 (Page 5)
- ↑ Morgan, Janet. Agatha Christie, A Biography . (Page 108). Collins, 1984 ISBN 0-00-216330-6
- ↑ Christie, Agatha. To Autobiography . (Pages 310-311). Collins, 1977 ISBN 0-00-216012-9
- ↑ Thompson, Laura. Agatha Christie: An English Mystery . London: Headline Review. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7553-1488-1 .
- ^ Audiobook (licensed) in the catalog of the German National Library