October 2013 Guest Editor Linwood Barclay on The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie...
My introduction to the mystery genre was really the Hardy Boys, but my first real, honest-to-God crime novel for grownups (although I read it when I was around twelve) was this one by the Grand Dame of whodunits. While this was my first, it was far from my favourite. Around the age of eleven or twelve, I read And Then There Were None, and that one made my head spin. Christie came up with countless original plots that the rest of us have been ripping off and disguising as our own for decades.
Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners.
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully adapted versions are shorter with the language targeted at upper-intermediate learners (CEF level B2).
Each reader includes:
A CD with a reading of the adapted story
Helpful notes on characters
Cultural and historical notes relevant to the plot
A glossary of the more difficult words
Pretty, young Anne Beddingfeld comes to London looking for adventure. But adventure finds her when she sees a man fall off an Underground platform and die on the rails.
The police think the death was an accident. But who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body before running away? Anne has only one clue, but she is determined to bring the mysterious killer to justice.
Anne's adventure takes her on a cruise ship all the way to Cape Town and on into Africa…
'The acknowledged queen of detective fiction the world over' OBSERVER
Author
About Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott and saw her work translated into more languages than Shakespeare. Her enduring success, enhanced by many film and TV adaptations, is a tribute to the timeless appeal of her characters and the unequalled ingenuity of the plots.
