skygiants | (no subject)

So far on this trip I'm averaging about one yellowed paperback a day; I've knocked out three to date, although as I am now reluctantly abandoning the cottage bookshelf to instead attack some of the things I brought with me I don't expect the streak to continue.

Anyway, the second book was Christie's The Man in the Brown Suit, an entertaining and funny but deeply racist thriller-romance from 1926 about a Plucky Young Adventuress who accidentally stumbles onto a Clue in the middle of a murder case and then decides to blow the last of her very limited cash on a ticket to South Africa to attempt to pursue the murderer because a.) she has no better prospects and b.) sounds like fun and also, c.), why the fuck not!

Anne "sounds like fun and why the fuck not" Beddingfield continues to be an extremely vibrant if occasionally alarming protagonist to follow. (In a mid-century thriller thematic twist, she also is the daughter of an archaeologist who has no wish to follow in his foosteps but whose specialized knowledge about brachiocephalic heads occasionally comes in useful.) Midway through she gains an additional motivation for Adventure when a gravely wounded murder suspect rolls through her door, reluctantly allows her to patch him up, is extremely rude to her, and disappears again.

ANNE'S SOPHISTICATED SHIPBOARD BFF: Anne, darling, you've met the murderer! If you catch him could make your fortune selling your story to the papers, which would be really helpful for you, because you have literally no money, and also very convenient since you've already scammed your way into getting hired as a fake newspaper correspondent!
ANNE: ABSOLUTELY not
ANNE'S SOPHISTICATED SHIPBOARD BFF: why not??
ANNE: because we have exchanged three words and I am now madly in love with him! sorry!!
ANNE'S SOPHISTICATED SHIPBOARD BFF: but he is a murderer???
ANNE: I mean I'm pretty sure he didn't do it. It's not that I don't think he's capable of murder, because I think he absolutely is and I think that is very sexy of him, it's just that the victim was strangled with a rope and I personally think he would have done it with his bare hands if he did it at all, which is also very sexy of him
ANNE'S SOPHISTICATED SHIPBOARD BFF: .... well, far be it from me to kinkshame?? I guess???

And, to be fair, the next time Anne and the murder suspect meet he does place his hands around her neck and threaten to strangle her and she does continue to find it very fun and sexy, so while one may question the wisdom of this romance overall one cannot deny that Anne is a woman who Knows Herself.

Anne's passion for ADVENTURE and also for THIS RUDE POSSIBLY-MURDERER leads her into various perils along the lines of kidnapping, and being framed for crimes and getting trapped on remote desert islands being shot at by evil minions, which, to her credit, she usually gets herself promptly right out of again without losing any of her good spirits and zest for life.

Anne's POV chapters, meanwhile, are interspersed with entries from the diary of her occasional traveling companion Sir Eustace Pedlar, a jovially lazy middle-aged lord overwhelmingly beleaguered with secretaries who is unfortunate enough to own the house in which the strangled murder victim was found. Pedlar's chapters are very funny as a counterpoint to Anne's, especially when Anne is inclined to consider various characters Extremely Sinister and Pedlar is determined to present them as stressed-out minor characters in a workplace comedy.

Unfortunately this all happens in various African countries under colonial rule, which, again, gives Agatha Christie all-too-plentiful opportunities to be racist! Not to mention using what appears to be a full revolution against colonial rule in Rhodesia as a charmingly misguided and inconsequential backdrop against which our British protagonists can have exciting adventures with no real long-term consequences! So, you know.

Now, I'll give Anne this, she cares about the murder attempts on her own life more or less exactly as little as she cares about the Rhodesian revolution and the many lives lost in the brutal suppression thereof.

ANNE: Well, now that we have discovered the murderer, my true love is still a little cross at him --
ANNE'S TRUE LOVE: YES I AM STILL A LITTLE PISSED ABOUT THE DEATH OF MY BEST FRIEND AND THE DESTRUCTION OF MY LIFE AND THE MULTIPLE MURDER ATTEMPTS ON YOU MY DARLING AND I WILL STRANGLE HIM WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS IF I EVER MEET HIM AGAIN
ANNE: -- but honestly no hard feelings, I really think me and this criminal mastermind had a real connection ... yes, sure, he did many crimes and caused many deaths, but in a funny and charming way! I don't see any need to take it personally.
ANNE'S TRUE LOVE: DARLING REGRET TO INFORM THAT YOU'RE A VILLAIN STAN AND EXTREMELY PROBLEMATIC

That said, I do really love that the murderer's downfall eventually comes because he couldn't resist hiring an extremely upright and moralistic secretary because he thought it was funny ... that is very cute. Great odd couple!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sovay

Midway through she gains an additional motivation for Adventure when a gravely wounded murder suspect rolls through her door, reluctantly allows her to patch him up, is extremely rude to her, and disappears again.

This tends to work better for me in Mary Stewart, but I appreciate the glimpse of the family tree.

That said, I do really love that the murderer's downfall eventually comes because he couldn't resist hiring an extremely upright and moralistic secretary because he thought it was funny

Villain workplace comedy is also an underserved genre in Golden Age detective fiction, so I approve.

From:

kore

This tends to work better for me in Mary Stewart, but I appreciate the glimpse of the family tree.

There's a big root (heh, heh) of it in Jane Eyre! Bronte must have gotten it from earlier Gothics, or does it pop up in Walter Scott??

From:

lirazel

Well now I want to go reread The Moon-Spinners.

From:

skygiants

Mary Stewart does it better than many!

The villain workplace comedy in this book is so good; I would watch an entire series of Villain And Secretary Adventures about a secret criminal mastermind attempting to work his evil schemes without attracting the notice of the tremendously efficient secretary he just cannot find an good excuse to fire.

From:

sovay

a secret criminal mastermind attempting to work his evil schemes without attracting the notice of the tremendously efficient secretary he just cannot find an good excuse to fire.

Eventually, romance.

From:

pengwern

All of your book recs sound like the MOST incredible thing.

From:

ecreet

YES

From:

skygiants

This one was hand-recommended to me after I started talking enthusiastically about a (nonfiction) book I'd read recently (which I have got to write up soon) about stunt girl reporters and my friend was like "this shelf MUST contain the Christie about the adventuress who fakes her way into getting hired as a reporter --"

From:

stranger

This book was one I was nudged into reading a few months ago, and yes, you have the essence of it, especially the rampant colonialism. Anne was an entrancing heroine, but not someone I could live with long-term.

As

sovay says, having read a lot of Mary Stewart (and similar) equips one to recognize the advent of the rude, wounded murder suspect as True Love, and so it proves...

From:

skygiants

Oh yes, I absolutely cannot imagine living with Anne long-term, nor her love interest, but they appear to enjoy each other's company so good for them I guess! Enjoy that lonely island with the shelves full of tinned food ...

That said, Gothics did mislead me into assuming any secondary love interest who is not the rude, wounded murder suspect has to be the final boss villain, so Agatha's red herrings misled me very successfully for a while!

From:

kore

ANNE'S SOPHISTICATED SHIPBOARD BFF: .... well, far be it from me to kinkshame?? I guess???

And, to be fair, the next time Anne and the murder suspect meet he does place his hands around her neck and threaten to strangle her and she does continue to find it very fun and sexy, so while one may question the wisdom of this romance overall one cannot deny that Anne is a woman who Knows Herself.

//laughing helplessly

No kinkshaming Anne! She is in tune with her own womanly desires!

From:

skygiants

THE LADY KNOWS WHAT SHE WANTS! it is to sexily unnerve a man by making it very clear she's turned on when he threatens her life unless she stays out of his affairs and that IS one way to keep the upper hand in the power dynamic of the relationship I suppose!

From:

whimsyful

Yeah, I read this one a few months ago and I was torn between being entertained by how blasé Anne is about almost being murdered, being shot at by machine guns, *forgiving the main villain because she finds him charming even though he was perfectly fine with murdering her*...and constantly wincing at all the racism. The workplace comedy/Sir Pedlar's Trouble With Secretaries parts were great though!

From:

skygiants

Right like it's very entertaining, EXCEPT!!! I can't blame Anne too much for finding the villain a little charming even though he's fine with murder because I, too, found him charming ... none of us are free from sin.

From:

gramarye1971

I'm never entirely sure how much this particular Christie is meant to be a straight thriller of the period, or how much it is meant to be a side-eye parody of the conventions of the Plucky Adventuress novel of the day, down to the false identity subplot and the choice of villain. She wrote more than a few similar stories early on in her career -- her next book, The Secret of Chimneys, comes to mind, and the adventure side of things in that book is a lot less wink-wink nudge-nudge in tone, as I recall. The Early Christie novels are a pretty wild ride in some parts.

From:

skygiants

It definitely reads like half a parody and that is definitely a large part of its charm! I was saying to Emmy earlier that tonally it lands for me, like, halfway between Charade and Romancing the Stone in the way that it leans into the genre conventions while giving a broad wink and citing all its sources ...

From:

osprey_archer

I had not realized that Agatha Christie wrote a straight-up adventure novel! With a little murder alongside for spice, I guess.

From:

skygiants

Apparently she wrote several! This one is very Romantic Suspense Thriller turned up to near-parody levels and everyone in it is having a FANTASTIC time. There is a way in which it's still a kind of rolling locked-room mystery, though -- there's a small subset of suspects who are all on the same boat for a good 50% of the book, it's just then we've got all the thriller hijinks added in round them.

From:

osprey_archer

I have just read this novel! I had forgotten that you'd just reviewed it (to be fair, The Man in the Brown Suit is NOT a memorable title), but as soon as I got to the Extremely Rude Murder Suspect I was like WAIT, I KNOW THIS STORY. Loved Anne's sophisticated shipboard BFF, loved Anne's general sangfroid in response to kidnapping attempts, getting shot at, nearly being murdered multiple times etc. etc., and oddly enough loved the romance. Normally I find the whole 1920s "caveman" kink aggravating, but Christie seems to realize it's ridiculous and revel in it just like she revels in and pokes loving fun at the silly adventure novel conventions. It's all so tongue in cheek and fun.

I will say that the treatment of Rhodesia gives me Pause about all other Christie novels that are set in Foreign Climes, so I may confine myself to Christie novels set in England in the future. There are certainly enough of those that I could keep going for quite a long time that way.

From:

skygiants

Right, like, it's not my kink, but Anne is just having such a good time! She knows what she wants and has committed to it one hundred percent while everyone else is like "....sure?? okay???" I also loved her shipboard BFF, who knew exactly the level to which she was willing to commit to Shenanigans and the level at which she was like "hm, no, I think I would like to return to Paris actually."

Yeah, I also am ... leery of other Christie novels set in Foreign Climes. Fortunately there's a neverending supply of suspicious deaths at upper-class house parties, England's great national curse and presumably one of the top ten likeliest ways to die if you happen to be a moderately sociable aristocrat.

From:

osprey_archer

Would that we all knew how to set such good boundaries about our involvement in Shenanigans! Anne's shipboard BFF is an inspiration TBH.

I am a bit wistful about the novels set on archaeological digs, because who does not love a novel set at an archaeological dig? However, life is Too Short for certain things, and I'm sure there are other archaeologically themed novels by different authors out there waiting for me.

From:

lacewood

Sinister Characters who might actually just be Stressed out Workplace People sounds A+, I guess I'll just have to go in forewarned about the racism...

From:

skygiants

Right, like, it's BAD, but once you squint around it the book is extremely fun and entertaining! I laughed out loud several times!

From:

lirazel

overwhelmingly beleaguered with secretaries

Best line I've read in a while.

Your reviews are a highlight of my day!

From:

skygiants

I'm so glad you enjoy them! :D

From:

chestnut_pod

Goodness, so glad you're out there reading these things and recapping them for our delighted, distance delectation.

From:

skygiants

I just can't resist a yellowing seventies paperback ... they exert an irresistible draw!

From:

rose_griffes

I remember this one. It really was a fun read... except for the RACISM EVERYWHERE, yeah.

From:

skygiants

Right, like other than that it is SO fun! everyone in it is having just an extremely good time! it's just, the only reason they are having that good time is intense colonialism.