Readers see Campion at work when his emotions become involved
Campion is called in to investigate when the leading
man in a hit West End musical becomes the victim of spiteful, practical jokes.
The actor and dancer Jimmy Sutane is starring in a
show based on a best-selling book written by William Faraday, who is one of Campion’s
oldest friends. Campion is taken to see the show by Faraday and introduced to
Jimmy after the performance.
The star asks Campion to discreetly look into the
pranks, which are beginning to cause him and his family distress, in this eighth
novel by Margery Allingham to feature her mysterious, clever sleuth.
Campion goes with Faraday to stay at Sutane’s country
home, where he meets the star’s family and some of his show business friends.
During Campion and Faraday’s visit, an unpopular actress
is accidentally run over by Sutane in his own car. Everyone seems happy to
believe that this was an accident, but Campion is not so sure.
As the increasingly unpleasant practical jokes
continue, Sutane’s ambitious understudy is killed, along with several innocent
bystanders. Campion liaises with the police about this unpleasant development while
carrying on with his own investigation.
When the butler in charge of the Sutane household resigns,
Campion has to call on his own unconventional butler, valet, and bodyguard,
Magersfontein Lugg, to help restore peace and order to the now chaotic country residence,
while he continues to investigate the mystery. Lugg gets on well with the
Sutane family, teaching the daughter of the house to pick locks.
In this novel, which was first published in 1937, Campion
finds himself torn, wanting to uncover the facts, but trying to avoid upsetting
a woman he has just met and fallen in love with. However, the determined
detective sticks to his task and it is only at the end of the story that he
finds out the truth.
This is another gripping novel from Margery Allingham,
which slowly unveils Campion’s character, showing his human side. It draws the
reader into Campion’s world and makes us want to find out more about him.
Mystery novel tells readers more about Albert Campion
The Vintage edition of Flowers for the Judge
Campion is pushed to his limits when he tries to solve
the puzzling disappearance of a director of a London publishing house, in Flowers for the Judge, the seventh novel by Margery Allingham to feature her adventurous series detective.
The mysterious Campion is called in to help when an
old friend, Paul Brande, a nephew of the founder of the Barnabus publishing
company, is reported as missing by his wife, Gina. Paul has been absent from
home for three days, but as he and his wife led almost separate lives, no one
has found it at all remarkable up till then.
Campion is introduced to the other members of the
family involved in the publishing firm at a Sunday afternoon tea party at Gina’s
flat. During the tea party, another cousin, Mike, goes to the office to fetch a
file for the firm’s managing director from the strong room.
The next day, Paul Brande’s body is discovered lying in
full view in the strong room by staff at the Barnabus publishing company. The
police decide Mike must have seen the body when he went there on the Sunday
afternoon but chose to say nothing about it. They also discover from other
people that he was secretly in love with Gina, who is an attractive young American
woman. They arrest him and accuse him of murdering Paul.
A large part of the book shows the police establishing
a case against Mike and putting him on trial for murder, almost making it a
legal mystery.
In this 1936 novel, Margery describes the nosegay traditionally
carried into court by the judge. It is made up of fresh, scented flowers for
the judge to sniff to mitigate the unpleasant smells and unhygienic air of the
courtroom. It is the nosegay that gives the book its title.
Peter Davison as the bespectacled Campion in the BBC adaptation of Flowers for the Judge
Campion is made aware of the disappearance of a
previous director of the firm, 20 years before, who seemed to vanish into thin
air while walking along a street in London.
He is also told about the manuscript of a previously
unpublished play written by Restoration dramatist William Congreve, which is
owned by the firm. This was kept in the safe in the strong room and was about
to be put on display at an event by Paul Brande.
As the trial gets under way, Campion, and his
manservant, reformed criminal Magersfontein Lugg, have to work day and night to solve the
murder before Mike is sentenced and hanged. At one point, Campion’s own life is
threatened and he finds he must draw on all his resources and Lugg’s underworld
contacts to help him solve the case.
Many readers have said they liked seeing the
development of Albert Campion’s character by Margery Allingham during this
story, who the reader has previously been told little about by the author. I
found it to be a pacy whodunit that I enjoyed reading.
Flowers for the Judge was adapted for the BBC with Peter
Davison as Campion and Brian Glover as Lugg and it was shown on television in two,
hour-long episodes in 1990.
Campion
risks his life to try to bring an audacious killer to justice
The Vintage edition of Death of a Ghost
Death
of a Ghost, Margery Allingham’s sixth novel to feature the gentleman adventurer Albert
Campion, was first published in the UK in 1934.
In
a note about Campion at the beginning of the book, the author observes that her
hero is an adventurer, whose exploits are sometimes picaresque, as in Mystery
Mile and Sweet Danger, but he sometimes faces grave difficulties, as in Police
at the Funeral. She warns that Death of a Ghost falls into the second category.
When
the story starts, preparations are being made for a party at the London home of
John Lafcadio, an artist who has been dead for 18 years. It is the eve of the
annual ceremony for the unveiling of one of the series of 12 paintings he has left
behind in a bid to keep his memory alive.
Campion,
who is a friend of the painter’s widow, Belle, visits her the day before the
ceremony and attends the unveiling occasion the following evening. When the
ceremony is interrupted by a daring and particularly brutal murder, Campion
calls in his good friend, Inspector Stanislaus Oates to investigate.
Suspicion
falls on a member of the family, but the police can’t find enough proof to make
an arrest. But when another murder is committed at the property, Campion decides
to investigate for himself to help his old friend, Belle.
I
found the novel slow at first, while lots of characters were being introduced
and described. The action didn’t really get under way until page 50.
Throughout
the novel, Campion seems passive, not behaving at all like the action man that
he was in Sweet Danger.
In
another departure from her previous stories, Margery reveals that Campion has
guessed the identity of the killer and names the person about 100 pages from the end of the book. He
says he has no means of proving it and fears for Belle’s safety, lamenting to
Inspector Oates that he is being outwitted by the killer.
Campion
seems strangely trusting to accept an invitation for a drink at the suspect’s
apartment and then to go out to dinner with a person he feels sure has committed
two murders.
Peter Davison played Albert Campion in a BBC TV adaptation of Death of a Ghost
He
allows himself to fall into a trap set for him by the suspect and then the
action heats up with Campion’s life in danger.
The
writer Margery Allingham was born in 1904 in London and began writing at the
age of eight when she had a story published in a magazine.
Her
first novel was published when she was 19, but she did not make her
breakthrough as a crime writer until her novel, The Crime at Black Dudley, was
published in 1929. This introduced her series detective, Albert Campion, even
though he appeared only as a minor character in her first book.
He
was at first thought to be a parody of Dorothy L Sayers’s hero, Lord Peter
Wimsey, but Campion matured as the series of books progressed and proved there
was a lot more to him, becoming increasingly popular with readers.
Margery
Allingham is regarded as one of the four great Queens of Crime from the Golden
Age of detective fiction. One of her fellow Queens of Crime, Agatha Christie, once
said of the author: “Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light.”
Reviewers
have identified Death of A Ghost as a proper detective story rather than a high-spirited
thriller, but it differs from other detective stories of the time by having the
sleuth identify the killer and share his knowledge with the reader considerably
before the end of the book. The reader must wait for proof that Campion is right
and to find out whether the police will have enough evidence to arrest the suspect
and bring him to justice. But like all good mystery writers, Margery keeps a
few surprises up her sleeve until the end of the story.
Death
of a Ghost was filmed for the BBC in 1960, when Campion was played by Bernard
Horstall, and then again in 1989, when the role was played by Peter Davison.
Vintage
Books, part of the Penguin Random House Group, have now republished all
Margery’s novels featuring her series detective Albert Campion.
Campion meets a flame-haired beauty who is a most unconventional heroine
A Vintage Books edition of Sweet Danger
There is the first sign of a love interest for the mysterious Albert Campion in Sweet Danger, the fifth novel written by Margery Allingham about her hero’s adventures.
Campion meets the plucky Amanda Fitton, a beautiful teenage girl, who works with him to thwart a deadly enemy intent on defrauding her family of its inheritance. The novel is full of action, danger and eccentric characters and ends with the most delicate of hints that there might be romance in the future for the noble adventurer, Campion.
Sweet Danger was first published in 1933 in the UK. However, it is not a typical novel of its time. Amanda Fitton is not a damsel in distress for Campion to rescue. She is a hard-up and not very well dressed 17-year-old, who is interested in experimenting with radio signals and electricity.
Campion has been tasked by the British Government with finding proof of ownership of Averna, a small, oil rich principality on the Adriatic, which has become a vital port after an earthquake has given it a natural harbour. He goes to the village of Pontisbright in the depths of the Sussex countryside, where he meets Amanda and her family who, as rightful heirs to the principality, insist on joining Campion’s quest.
Although Campion and his friends agree to join forces with the Fitton family, whose ancestors were given the principality way back in history, an unscrupulous financier and his hired thugs are also on the trail. The family suffer violent attacks and Campion’s friends are tied up in sacks and shot at, while Campion himself goes missing.
During a showdown with the main villain, Amanda saves Campion’s life, but she has been shot herself in the process. Thankfully, her wound is not life threatening and in the last pages of the book she asks him to take her into partnership in his business ‘later on’…
Allingham's writing was notable for her insight into character
In 2022, Sweet Danger might seem like a far-fetched story to modern crime fiction fans, but I think it is well written and a gripping page-turner and still worth reading.
Margery Allingham, who died on this day in 1966, was a prolific writer during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. She left a legacy of 18 Albert Campion mysteries, six volumes of short stories about the detective and many stand-alone novels, novellas and volumes of short stories.
Margery died of cancer in hospital in Colchester six weeks after her 62nd birthday. She was in the process of writing her last novel, Cargo of Eagles, and had mapped out the story long before her death. Her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, was able to finish it, as she herself would have done, following her plan.
In a preface to Mr Campion’s Clowns, an omnibus of novels by Margery Allingham, published in 1967, Youngman Carter paid tribute to his late wife as ‘a generous, kind and courageous woman with a rare gift for friendship’.
Margery showed wonderful insight into character and her books abound in witty and accurate observations of people. As she matured as a writer, her books became deeper and started to encompass significant themes, such as love and justice, good and evil, and illusion and truth. Her works have now attained classic status and she has, at times been compared with Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson
Vintage Books, part of the Penguin Random House Group, have now republished all Margery’s novels featuring her series detective Albert Campion.
But before Campion
and Joyce have even left London for Cambridge, they find out that the body of
Uncle Andrew has been found in a river. He had been bound hand and foot with
cord and shot in the head.
In this
fourth novel to feature the mysterious Mr Campion, the author, Margery Allingham, allows
hints to be dropped by one of the characters that Campion is from a prominent
British aristocratic family, giving the reader a tantalising clue about who he really is.
Campion
takes Joyce back to Socrates Close, the large old house where she lives with her
Great Aunt, Caroline Faraday, the widow of a famous Cambridge academic, and the other members of the strange and dysfunctional family, who she helps Mrs
Faraday to take care of.
From the
previous novels, we know that Campion is well-educated, with quiet authority
and that he is not afraid to put himself in danger to help others. He lives
above a police station in London with an eccentric manservant and is reputed to
be a good man to call upon in a crisis. He appears to be more of a gentleman
adventurer than a private detective.
Nevertheless,
he goes to Socrates Close to meet the formidable Caroline Faraday, who, because
she thinks she knows his family, invites him to stay.
He uses his
skill and experience to work out what is going on at Socrates Close when a second member
of the family dies and another one is injured while they are both still inside the
house.
Peter Davison played Campion in a BBC TV adaptation of Margery Allingham's novels
Campion follows
up the clues he finds, such as the mysterious symbol drawn on the outside of one of
the library windows and a huge footprint found in the flower bed below.
Although he
works alongside his policeman friend, Stanislaus Oates, a senior Scotland Yard
detective, it is Campion who works out what has been happening in the house and
exposes the person responsible.
Police at
the Funeral, the fourth Campion novel, was published in Britain in 1931 and is the first
of the series not to have organised crime as a plot element. Instead, it is about
a wealthy family living together in a big house who are constantly having petty
squabbles. It is the first real detective story by Margery and is considered by
many of her readers to be one of her best novels.
She was later judged to be
one of the four Queens of Crime, along with her contemporaries, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers
and Ngaio Marsh, who were also writing during the Golden Age of detective
fiction.
Grey Mask, originally published in 1928, was republished 90 years later
Patricia
Wentworth’s first Miss Silver Mystery, Grey Mask, published in 1928,
introducesan unassuming little old lady,
who is continually knitting baby garments, but is actually a shrewd private
detective with a brilliant mind.
Many people
have assumed over the years that Miss Silver was inspired by Agatha Christie’s
much-loved Miss Marple, but actually it could have been the other way round. The
first Miss Marple novel, The Murder at the Vicarage, was not published until
1930, although the endearing character had made her first appearance in a short
story published in The Royal Magazine in December 1927.
Whoever came
first, the two old ladies might appear to be similar characters, but there are
many differences between them. Miss Marple lives in a cottage in a sleepy
village but is more worldly wise than she might appear. She has developeda deep knowledge of human nature and can
always refer to a useful village parallel when investigating a case, possessing
the ability to pick out a villain because he reminds her of a young man that she
once knew who stole from his employer, or a naughty boy who often played tricks
on his teachers.
Miss Silver,
however, is the real deal, as she walks the mean streets of London and takes on
cases in a professional way, pitting her wits against major crime bosses.
In Grey Mask
there is little explanation about who Miss Silver is, or why she has set
herself up as a private investigator in London in the 1920s, but she appears to
be well known in upper class circles and the hero of the story is sent to
consult her on the recommendation of a friend.
Charles
Moray, an explorer, has returned home after four years abroad, to findhis house unlocked, with a light burning in
one of its abandoned rooms. He finds somewhere to hide and eavesdrops on what
is going on in the room. A criminal gang are using his house to plot a vicious
crime. Furthermore, he recognises the voice of one of the conspirators. It belongs
to the woman who jilted him on the eve of his wedding four years earlier.
His friend
urges him to consult Miss Silver and so Charles goes to her office. His first
impression of the well-respected private detective is that she is ‘a little
person with no features, no complexion, and a great deal of tidy mouse-coloured
hair done in a large bun at the back of her head’. He finds that appearances
can be deceptive, however, and that Miss Silver is not afraid to tackle a
criminal gang who are prepared to resort to violence, kidnapping and shooting
people.
Patricia
Wentworth was the pen name of Dora Amy Elles, who was born in India, where her
father was stationed with the British Army, in 1877. She was sent to England to
be educated, but returned to India and married George Dillon in 1906. He had
three children from a previous marriage and they had one child together. After
his death she moved back to England with the children.
In 1920 she
married again, to George Turnbull, and settled in Surrey. She had begun writing
while in India and in 1910 had won the Melrose Prize for her first published
novel, A Marriage Under the Terror, which was set during the French Revolution.
Under the
pen name of Patricia Wentworth, she wrote 32 crime novels featuring Miss
Silver, beginning with Grey Mask in 1928 and ending with Girl in the Cellarin
1961, the year of her death. Miss Silver develops as a character during the
series and works closely with Scotland Yard. The reader will eventually discover
she is a retired governess with a passion for Tennyson as well as for knitting.
Patricia Wentworth
also wrote poetry and more than 30 other novels throughout her career.
I would
recommend reading Grey Mask, which was republished by Hodder and Stoughton in
2018 and is available again in some public libraries. It is a well-written
story told from multi viewpoints and, although it is typical of the sensational
crime fiction of its time, such as Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence novels
and Margery Allingham’s Mr Campion books, it has an intriguing mystery at its
heart, which is not revealed until the end.
Third Campion mystery features an ancient relic, witches, gypsies and a ruthless gang
Look to the Lady involves Campion searching for a 'monster' hiding in Suffolk woodland
Margery Allingham was well into her stride writing about her mysterious, amateur sleuth, Albert Campion, when she published her third novel about his adventures, Look to the Lady, in 1931, just two years after his first appearance in The Crime at Black Dudley.
Campion and his butler and ex-offender sidekick, Magersfonteing Lugg, rescue the son of a baronet, Val Gyrth, from violent criminals attempting to kidnap him. They offer to help him prevent the theft of a rare family heirloom, the Gyrth Chalice, but as soon as they arrive with him at his family home in Suffolk, they discover his aunt has been found dead in mysterious circumstances.
Campion sets out to solve the mystery of the aunt’s death and work out how to protect the valuable chalice, which the Gyrth family have been guarding for the nation for more than a thousand years.
To solve the mystery, Campion has to go out with an elderly professor to try to find the ‘monster’ hiding in nearby woodland that has been terrorising the local people for years.
Look to the Lady has been republished by Vintage Books
After infiltrating the headquarters of the gang plotting to steal the chalice, Campion is imprisoned by them, until a band of gypsies helps him to escape.
Then he has to ride a wild, black horse five miles across open countryside to be in time to prevent the theft of the chalice from its home high up in a tower.
Although Margery Allingham was writing during the Golden Age of detective fiction, Look to the Lady is less of a cosy, village mystery and more of a sophisticated, fast-moving novel of suspense.
Agatha Christie has been quoted as saying: ‘Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light,’ and, in her day, Margery was regarded as one of the four Queens of Crime, along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh.
Look to the Lady was first published in Great Britain by Jarrolds more than 90 years ago, but it has now been republished by Vintage Books, part of the Penguin Random House Group. It remains an exciting, addictive page turner and I can highly recommend it.
Remembering the brilliant writing of Margery Allingham
Margery Allingham wrote 18 novels featuring her detective, Albert Campion
Crime novelist Margery Allingham, who died on this day in 1966, was a prolific writer during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
She left a legacy of 18 Albert Campion mysteries, six volumes of short stories featuring the detective and many stand-alone novels, novellas and volumes of short stories. With Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh she became known as one of the four Queens of Crime.
Margery died of cancer in hospital in Colchester six weeks after her 62nd birthday. She was in the process of writing her last novel, Cargo of Eagles, and had mapped out the story long before her death, so that her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, was able to finish it as she herself would have done, according to her plan.
In a preface to Mr Campion’s Clowns, an omnibus of novels by Margery Allingham, published in 1967, Youngman Carter paid tribute to his late wife as ‘a generous, kind and courageous woman with a rare gift for friendship’.
Margery showed wonderful insight into character and her books abound in witty and accurate observations of people, with an especially keen eye for an eccentric. As she matured as a writer, her books became deeper and started to encompass significant themes, such as love and justice, good and evil, and illusion and truth. Her works have now attained classic status and she has, at times been compared to Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson
The Crime at Black Dudley was Allingham's breakthrough
Her first novel was published when she was 19, but she did not make her breakthrough as a crime writer until her novel, The Crime at Black Dudley, was published in 1929. This introduced her series detective, the gentleman sleuth Albert Campion, even though he appeared only as a minor character in her first book.
He was at first thought to be a parody of Sayers’ hero, Lord Peter Wimsey, but Campion matured as the series of books progressed and proved there was a lot more to him, and he became increasingly popular with readers.
Vintage Books, part of the Penguin Random House Group, have now republished all Margery Allingham’s novels featuring her series detective Albert Campion, making it likely that some will eventually be stocked by public libraries.
.jpg "Allingham's writing was notable for her insight into character")
