Agatha Christie: The Man in the Brown Suit Review – Ft. Drug Store Coffee Ice Cream Soda

In The Man in the Brown Suit, restless teenager Anne Beddingfield suddenly finds herself orphaned and penniless and decides it’s high-time she leave her provincial life and find herself some adventure. She soon after witnesses the sudden death of a man at a train station, and stumbles upon the outskirts of a dangerous mystery. Her sleuthing, and whimsy, ends up landing her onto a ship sailing for Africa. On this ship, she meets a mysterious man who checks every box of dangerous and romantic that she’s dreamed of, but she also, perhaps, finds herself a little more adventure than she had bargained for.

Spoilers ahead!

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This is an unusual Christie novel, and I am really torn about it. On one hand, I think it’s very funny. On the other hand, I hated the main romance. I also just generally disliked the way women were described in this book, which was mainly in terms of whether they were attractive or not. I believe this early quote sums up the book’s general tone quite well:

“It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.“

Anne Beddingfield

Oh, dear! How sad. I really don’t like blanket statements like this, which take occasional tendencies and attribute it to the whole human race. There were a lot of ‘gendered’ kinds of statements (is that the word I’m looking for?) like this in the book, which I just really don’t love. There are enough problems in this world! We don’t need to say things like this and make it worse. I also found it amusing when, HUGE SPOILER ALERT, the book ends with Anne reminiscing that she will always be fond of Eustace Pedler (a serial-murderer), but will never have any sympathy for Nadina, because she was a gold-digger who pretended to be in love with someone.

Hmmm. Is it just me, or is literal murder a bit worse than playing with someone’s feelings?

All in all, strange attitudes towards women in this book, but I’m inclined to say Christie just wrote it when she was in an off mood.

And yet again, I kept choosing the WRONG villain. I’ll just say it: it was CHEAP that Pedler was the villain! Because we are able to see events from his perspective, he defaults to “NOT GUILTY” in the reader’s mind. One of these days, Christie! One of these days, I will guess correctly! (For what it’s worth, I suspected Colonel Race.) Now I know: NO ONE IS SAFE!

My only saving grace is this: I really felt certain the entire time that Guy Pagett was innocent. You have to have some faith. When someone seems stubbornly good, don’t you want to believe them? He was my favorite part of the book. Sir Eustace Pedler put it quite well:

“I gazed at him in a kind of stupor. I might have known, all along, that a man like Pagett couldn’t have a guilty secret. The respectability of Pagett has always been my bane. That’s just the kind of secret he would have- a wife and four children.”

Eustace Pedler, chapter 31

Ah, yes. The presence of at least one completely likeable character did this book good.

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Drug Store Coffee Ice Cream Soda

Note: You really do need straws for this. (The recipe said so, but I didn’t believe it. You will have very disproportionate sips without it.)

This excellent yummy dessert drink comes from my new favorite book, Karen Pierce’s Recipes for Murder: 66 Dishes that Celebrate the Mysteries of Agatha Christie.

Unlike my Nancy Drew Cookbook, whose recipes are correlated to their respective mystery only very loosely (if at all- there is generally no connection), every recipe in this book is mentioned by name in the novel that it’s associated with. In Man in the Brown Suit, Anne Beddingfield takes a break from her pursuers midway through the novel to hide in plain site at a drug store, where she orders several ice cream sodas to fortify her strength. The ingredients are as follows:

• 3 cups of Coffee
• 1-2 tbsps Granulated White Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup Single Cream
• 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• 4 scoops Vanilla Ice Cream
• 1 cup Seltzer or Sparkling Water
• Cocoa Powder or Grated Chocolate for garnish

I don’t believe Single Cream is sold in the US, but I made my own version of it by mixing Heavy Whipping Cream and Half n’ Half, which, upon reflection, I’m not sure makes any sense at all, but it seemed right to me at the time.

Everyone should buy this book, so here is a less detailed version of the recipe:

1. Brew the Coffee, mix in the Sugar, and then let cool in the fridge. You will want the coffee to be COMPLETELY cold.
2. After it has been cooled, mix the Coffee with Vanilla and Single Cream.
3. Distribute this mixture into four glasses.
4. In a separate bowl, blend the Heavy Cream until there are soft peaks. (The recipe doesn’t say so, but I suggest adding some sweetener to the whipped cream for a better experience.)
5. Add a scoop of Ice Cream into each glass, and then top each off with 1/4 cup Seltzer or Sparkling Water (I used club soda- which might be the same as sparkling water).
6. Add Whipped Cream to each glass, and then garnish with Cocoa Powder or Grated Chocolate.

My notes:

• Use very big scoops of ice cream! This is not the sweetest drink in the world.
• Unless you sweeten the whipped cream, you will be left with a somewhat tasteless mass at the bottom of your glass.
• Straws will really enhance your experience.