The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie

Perhaps the narrator should compare her performance to Joan Hickson's narration of a Miss Marple novel. But I tried to get though this audiobook twice and couldn't stick it out to the end either time because the male voices were so bad. This is a bit surprising because her voices and readings for the female characters were generally good. She tried to mimic a 'gruff' male voice for the journal entries of a male character that constitute almost half the novel. But this female narrator's efforts to perform the male parts of this novel were the worst screechings I have ever heard. I have had listen to some pretty strange woman's voices when male narrators lack the ability to do female voices adequately. Novels read by a single author almost always suffer a bit when the narrator does characters of the opposite sex. How could the performance have been better?

The theme of the bold, unprotected young woman off on an adventure to South Africa and what was then Rhodesia by rail and steamship had some moments, but the author 's approach of relating the story through the journal entries of two of the characters was ineffective and at times annoying.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting? It is not one the author's better efforts. This one is a girl's own adventure, written with a running commentary about what similar heroines in the movies would do. The only readers who might like this story are those who have a goal of listening to every Agatha Christie novel available. This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie