The Man in the Brown Suit (Colonel Race #1)

The Man in the Brown Suit is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by The Bodley Head on 22 August 1924 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The character Colonel Race is introduced in this novel. Anne Beddingfeld is on her own and ready for adventures when one comes her way. She sees a man die in a tube station and picks up a piece of paper dropped nearby. The message on the paper leads her to South Africa as she fits more pieces of the puzzle together about the death she witnessed. There is a murder in England the next day, and the murderer attempts to kill her on the ship en route to Cape Town. The setting for the early chapters is London. Later chapters are set in Cape Town, Bulawayo, and on a fictional island in the Zambezi. The plot involves an agent provocateur who wants to retire, and has eliminated his former agents. Reviews were mixed at publication, as some hoped for another book featuring Hercule Poirot, while others liked the writing style and were sure that readers would want to read to the end to learn who is the murderer. A later review liked the start of the novel, and felt that the end did not keep pace with the quality of the start. The reviewer did not like it when the story became like a thriller novel.