The Man in the Brown Suit

Anne Beddingfeld is young, broke, and hungry for adventure when she watches a man fall to his death on the platform of a London Underground station. A cryptic note dropped at the scene sends her chasing a killer across the ocean to South Africa, where stolen diamonds, a vanished fortune, and a shadowy figure known only as ‘the Colonel’ all seem to connect. Agatha Christie wrote this standalone thriller early in her career, and it moves at a brisker, more romantic pace than her drawing-room puzzles, told partly through Anne’s diary and partly through the private papers of a sardonic member of Parliament. It is Christie plainly enjoying herself with the adventure story. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.