Agatha Christie's The Man In The Brown Suit

About a zillion years ago (or, you know, in the late 1980s) a movie adaptation of Agatha Christie's The Man In The Brown Suit hit the small screen. I knew then that it was highly adapted since it took place in the present and not in the 1920s but, of course, I watched it anyway. I hadn't read the book but, as I've said before, many of my early years went by without my "read before you watch" obsession. TV favorites Tony Randall & Rue McClanahan took part and Stephanie Zimbalist played the main character. I absolutely loved her in Remington Steele.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable enough movie. Absolute made-for-tv fluff. And one that I remember just enough of years later to the point of not being in a hurry to read the book. I put it on my 20 Books of Summer list since I'm aiming to read all of Christie's novels in order and it was next ... and ...

Holy. Crap.

If you've read the book, don't be in a big rush to hunt down the movie (it's out of print ... but it is on YouTube if you MUST). If you saw the movie? READ THE BOOK.

In the book, Anne Beddingfield has led a rather boring and sheltered life, much to her dismay.

When she is suddenly orphaned after the death of her father she sees it as her chance to go out and become "Anne the Adventuress." [The book was actually serialized using this title, in fact.] A case of being in "the wrong place at the wrong time" leads her to snooping and poking her nose into two possible murder investigations -- including a cruise from England to Africa. It turns out that this is far more than "simply" murder but also of diamond smuggling and espionage.

One big ol' highlight for me: Colonel Race! I know Race thanks to Death On The Nile and Sparkling Cyanide and he is an absolute gem here in his first appearance! Even Anne thought so:

Of course, the idea of marrying him was gone just a short time later -- thanks to her deciding that someone else is even more worthy of her attention:

The "him" in question is one of several suspects (which, being a Christie tale, should come as no surprise) Sure enough, Anne gets into one heap of trouble after another trying to solve the mysteries at hand and, hopefully, clear his name. She is, after all, a Christie heroine. She's spunky. She's intelligent. She's unconventional. She's more than a little foolish at times. Through it all, though, she's fearless .... almost.

There's so much more to love about The Man In The Brown Suit than just Race and Anne (though I do lament immensely that Anne was a one-and-done character for Christie. She is really just so much fun). This is one of those books where even the annoying characters are at least enjoyably and purposefully annoying. The characters are wonderful ... the romance is darling (and I'm not a big fan of romance books as a general rule) ... and as for the mystery? Well, it's a Christie ....

Oooooh such a Christie.

In other words, she got me all sorts of discombobulated.

I thought I nailed it. I didn't trust at all that even if my recollection of the late 1980s was in tact that the outcome would be the same and, as it turns out, I don't remember the ending of the movie version at all. I was in middle school, after all, so I may have fallen asleep before it was finished.

Whatever. She tricked me.

Again.

And I loved every minute of it.

Reading With John : Secrets of Droon # 1

Every year our favorite library has a huge book sale and a couple of years ago I grabbed the first two Secrets of Droon books for John in case they were something he would ever be interested in. We read the first one this week in 2 days and he's excited about reading the rest of them at some point!

For this review he asked for another fill-in-the-blank or form, so form it was! I made it at work Friday morning and that afternoon he got to work filling it out!

Title: The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet Author: Tony Abbott Year Published: 1999 # of Pages: 80 ***** Main Setting (Time/Place): Plud/Droon and Eric's house (forgot time! "It's 1999, Mom!!!") Main Characters: Eric, Julie, Keeah and Neal What Happened In The Story: In the beginning, Eric, Neal and Julie go to clean Eric's basement. Then Neal kicks the soccer ball in the closet to Droon. After that, they meet Keeah and save her from Sparr. Why Did You Give It The Rating You Did? I loved reading it because it was funny and exciting and I loved the flying carpet and sound effect words like "zam" and "fwap."
Being a big fan of drawing he was rather pleased with the box for a picture. I told him he could draw anything from the book he wanted to in it and he chose the character of Max.

#BookBeginnings & #Friday56 - Heather Graham's Sacred Evil

It's Friday again! I'm still working on Heather Graham's Sacred Evil since this has been a week full of distractions, but it's a great read so worth the extra time. 

Friday56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences & your thoughts) is at Rose City Reader!

The top is from the very beginning of the book. It being the third in the series I couldn't help but wonder/worry if the "she" being stalked was a new character or one of the Krewe that I have come to care about!

The bottom is from the 56-ish-% mark. It kind of made me shake my head that even that far in they were still explaining the group to the main character ... but he is a bit set in his ways and thoughts. Knowing Graham's books as well as I do he'll likely snap out of his mocking skepticism before long.

#TeaserTuesday # 25 - Heather Graham's Sacred Evil (Krewe of Hunters # 3)

The Book & The Tease

The Meme

#BookBeginnings & #Friday56 & A Ramble : Dangerously Dark by Colette London

The second of Colette London's Chocolate Whisperer /mystery series, Dangerously Dark, is set for release on September 29th but I was able to read it early thanks to Kensington and NetGalley spoiling me with such things. I was pretty excited since I enjoyed the first in the series. You can read about that one HERE. 

Because the copy that I read is an e-ARC, the quotes I'm using for this week's Book Beginnings and Friday56 may differ in the final publication. I hope not, though, because they pretty much rock.

Friday56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences & your thoughts) is at Rose City Reader!

Dangerously Dark opens very shortly after our last encounter with Hayden had finished (with only a few casualties) and this time she's off to Portland, Oregon. She was actually on her way to Seattle to finally meet face-to-face her financial/business/whatever advisor whom she has a voice-crush on, but ended up going to Portland instead for a college friend's engagement weekend. At first she was dismayed at having to be in "girly" mode but that soon turned to relief about taking time off from chocolate-whispering and murder-solving and best-hunky-male-friend obsessing (who is not the same male she's voice-crushing. That would be too easy.).

This is where I would normally say something like "but, of course, this is a mystery series so it doesn't all go as planned and instead of relaxing Hayden is thrust into another murder investigation blah blah blah" .... but I feel like I say that about every cozy mystery (at least mentally). Of course, this is and it doesn't and she is.

Have I mentioned that Hayden still has "monkey brain" ... and, apparently, so do I? In the first book she compared herself to a monkey on No-Doz. I took my last Vivarin (with coffee) two hours ago so .... yeah.

***There's a reason I write "rambles" rather than "reviews."***

The monkey-ness is only one aspect of Hayden that screams "KINDRED SPIRIT" in my face. There's also the chocolate (love), coffee (love), ice cream (love), Converse (love), corpses (lov.....wait. No, that part's just her). We both also have a tendency to be socially awkward (while still being able to lay claim to the "people person" label). We also both tend to use a lot of parentheses .... and dots of ellipses .... and I'm pretty sure we both do it when we speak and when we "type" (this being a first-person narrative).

***If you feel like your brain is bleeding from reading this you should probably steer clear of the series. Just an FYI because I care.***

I'm not going to go into a drawn out "this is what happened and this is whodunnit and this is how it was figured out" deal. I never do. And since I'm not actually done with it yet I don't even know. What I will do is say that so far I'm loving the twists and the turns and the humor in this installment just as much as I loved Criminal Confections (maybe even slightly moreso).

By the way, you totally have time to order the first book and catch up in time for the release of Dangerously Dark.

You're welcome.