Coroner's Pidgin (1945)

I read this and a lot of other Allngham when young. I like the short stories best, but this is all right. ( )

Campion at war. The detective story doesn't really matter, but gives us humour and pathos, glamour and a view of society London at the end of the long haul of war.

This Campion story was published in 1945, set in war-damaged London. Albert Campion, who has returned from three years' secret overseas intelligence work, is having a quick bath in his flat before catching a train to his home in the country where his wife Amanda is waiting. He reckoned without his manservant Lugg choosing that moment to deposit a dead body in his flat - and Campion is reluctantly drawn into another case of intrigue and murder within the household of Lord Carados, in a city barely recognisable and among people who seem to have been affected by the violence of war.

Another enjoyable read. The writing is fresh and immediate, the contemporary depiction of a war-torn city is interesting, there are comic moments (especially supplied by Lugg and his pig) and as an undercurrent to the plot and mystery, there is Campion's constantly frustrated longing and desire to leave all this business behind and finally get home - where a different kind of surprise awaits him. ( )

Not her best, but still an enjoyable read. Too many characters, seemingly introduced at random, confuse the issue in a story that begins promisingly when Albert Campion, home on leave and desperate to catch that train that will reunite him with his wife, discovers that his manservant Lugg and an aristocratic elderly lady have deposited a corpse in his bed... ( )

Excellent detective novel set in 1945 wartime London. Some of the characters are rather flightl and overwrought, which gets a bit tiresome but I think that's how some people really were.

Issues of class and expectations complicate the case while all Campion wants is to be left alone to catch his train out of London to enjoy his first home leave in a long while. ( )