Traitor's Purse

Summary: Amnesiac Campion thinks “fifteen” of vital importance. It holds a key to a vital mission he tries to fulfill, though he knows not what it is.

You wake up in a hospital bed not knowing who you are or how you got there, except that your head hurts. A nurse is talking about a man lying unconscious who has killed a policeman. You assume that is you and realize you are in serious trouble. A fireman’s garb offers you camouflage to escape. You steal a car, drive madly into the country until the car breaks down.

A car pulls up and a young woman you met leaving the hospital offers you a ride. She calls you Campion. Before arriving at your destination, which you learn is the Bridge Institute, you drop off a passenger, Mr. Anscombe. show more You escort Anscombe to the door, then return and leave a package he forgot. When you arrive and the woman brings you to your room, you realize that the woman is Amanda. You are close, maybe even married. You can’t bring yourself to tell her that you can’t remember who you are or why you are there.

Fifteen. Somehow, Campion knows that number is important. Is it a date–two days off? He has a sense that there is some momentous evil that he has to stop. But with amnesia, he knows neither what he has to stop nor how to stop it. But he has to feign that he does and figure things out. A letter from Oates tells him to seek out Anscombe. He arrives only to find Anscombe dead and his instincts tell him it is murder.

Soon, he is under suspicion. He isn’t acting right or even like Campion. And when he can’t prove who he is, he socks the local police superintendent (Hutch) and takes off. Even though Amanda has told him their engagement is off and she is attracted to the Institute director Aubrey Lee, she keeps showing up. And by instinct, or whatever, Campion finds Lugg, who helps him understand what has happened to him.

Piece by piece, things come together. A second knock on the head leads to it all coming together, with the realization of a scheme unfolding that would throw the country into chaos. But can he elude all the police pursuing him and somehow stop things in time, particularly when he can no longer reach Oates?

I thought this one of the most suspenseful of the Campion stories so far. We’re left on tenterhooks about how things will shake out with Amanda and Albert. And Allingham creates a significant plot premise of a sleuth trying to figure out what case he is on. How does Campion do Campion when he can’t remember Campion? I loved it. show less

Traitor’s Purse by Margery Allingham is a novel of wartime suspense as a severely handicapped Albert Campion tries to successfully complete his mission to uncover a group of enemy agents that were about to seriously derail England’s war efforts.

The book opens with Albert Campion waking to find himself in a hospital but having no idea of who he is or how he got there. He then finds that he is accused of attacking a police officer. He has taken a blow to the head and is suffering from a concussion and experiencing amnesia. He begins the slow process of putting the pieces together on his identity and the details of his under cover work for the government. Although he has no idea of what he is investigating, he does have a strong sense show more that he must stop something from happening. So with the clock ticking down and not knowing who he can trust, he sets to work.

An enjoyable outing that sees Campion thwarting the Nazis and giving the reader a taste of wartime Britain. Albert’s long time love interest, Amanda is on hand and their relationship takes a giant step forward as Campion finally recognizes just how much she means to him. Also there is an appearance by his long-time manservant Lugg, whose feelings are hurt when Campion doesn’t seem to know who he is. show less

This is one of my favourite Campion novels. It's a bit different from the norm, while due to the nature of the plot, it stays directly with Campion's (3rd person) POV throughout (Allingham has a tendency to leapfrog from POVs that I don't much like) creating a taut but affecting thriller.

I know that amnesia is a bit of a trope, but honestly I can't actually think of any other examples I've read in literature and it works brilliantly here. We get a Campion who is ill and terrified, and more emotionally dependant that usual, which makes for a compelling story.

For the most part, it's a brilliant book but I do think the ending is too abrupt. The villain reveal is basically done 'off screen' and it's not very interesting. It feels like one show more of those 'well there was no one else in the story so I guess it had to be them' things, and it also made me realise how often Allingham uses the same blasted type of villain in her Campion stories. They're all genius megalomaniacs able to control and manipulate those around them. Getting a bit tired of that now since it is so ridiculous and always makes the villain stand out in neon as soon as she introduces them. There was a smattering of toxic masculinity again in that Campion is for some reason against Amanda discovering his weakness lest she should pity him or show compassion. Because men have to be strong all the time, right? Not a great moral. Also annoying that he doesn't do anything to secure her love. He's just lucky that her other relationship ends (also off screen) and he can turn up and claim her. Given that a lot of the book is about his utter but before now ignored devotion to her, that was rather disappointing.

Other than a slightly weak ending though, it's a great read. show less

...And Allingham changes style again. Three years after her last Campion adventure, she's completely given up the ghost of the upper-class murder mystery that informed most of the 1930s; now, she's devoted herself completely to the World War II spy thriller. This isn't the light, Golden Age romp we got ten years earlier with Mystery Mile at all. This is serious business, made all the more urgent by starting in media res. Albert Campion wakes up in hospital with a head injury and amnesia, and from there on, the action never really lets up. Allingham uses that to her benefit, especially in the final third of the book, where there is so much exposition - and, frankly, Campion leaps to so many deductions - that you really have to be moving show more at speed to accept it. Is it entertaining? Well, yes, it's practically a Hitchcock film (think Suspicion or Secret Agent), and it's immensely readable. Does it make sense? Well, that's debatable. It doesn't feel much like anything that came before, and if it weren't for the cast of secondary characters - Oates, Amanda, and most especially a fun little entrance by Lugg - you might wonder if the book was originally written for Campion at all. Still, full credit to Allingham for trying something new. It will be interesting to see if she continues in this darker, more cynical vein from here on out, and whether or not Campion will regain any of his former personality. show less

This is another very different book from those earlier in the series. In this we start with Albert in hospital, having been unconscious and with amnesia. He overhears a conversation that has him believing that he's about to be charged for killing a police officer and the feeling that there is something urgent he needs to do. And so he scarpers, dressed in fisherman's oilskins. A car chase ensues and any number of odd events take place from there. Set in the start of WW2, this has quite a different feel from the earlier novels as well as a very different narrative tale. I did wonder how he was going to recover his memory and that takes place a little too neatly, but it was one way out of the situation. The final chapters are at a show more breakneck pace as Campion strives to stop a swindle that would put the country's economic stability at risk.
I listened to this and the narrator had a somewhat annoying habit of making Campion sound like a blithering idiot. I admit that he is, at times, an entitled arse, but he;s not actually stupid. That aside, this was a good entry in the series, but I;d not try and read it first. Like Campion at the start, you'd be a touch too much at sea. show less

A really enjoyable thriller/mystery story. I read 15 of Allingham's Albert Campion novels in 1991/92, having read many of Sayer's Peter Wimsey novels and thinking that Campion was a good imitation, but imitation nevertheless. By the time I read this (11th in the series), I was clearly feeling jaded and only rated it average in memory.
Rereading it 24 years later and I find it a fascinating idea, beautifully executed, so revise my rating of the story accordingly.

The story starts with Albert Campion (although he does not remember his name) awaking in a hospital bed to find he has lost his memory, from a conversation he overhears from outside his ward he learns that he has killed a policeman, but he knows that he has an urgent mission - show more somehow connected to the number 15. Unfortunately, he cannot remember more than that. The story is of his escape to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of his urgent mission. We are in wartime Britain (WWII) and the mission must have something to do with the Nazis; what, is gradually revealed with great twists and turns (if a good number of coincidences).
The story is also of Campion's discovery of his love for Amanda Fitton, who he was to marry, but of course he had forgotten that too. This part of the story is very well handled.
Rereading this after so many years, I now want to go back and reread other stories in the series.

The novel was first published in 1941 and whilst of its time in its preoccupations, is also social history for us now. It is also amazing that Allingham had time for writing this as well as the work she was doing with evacuees from London.

I read the beautifully produced Folio Society edition with suitably atmospheric illustrations by James Boswell, capturing the the fractured view of reality from Campion's amnesia and drab colours of wartime Britain. The cover is especially successful in suggesting the amnesia from a blow to the head and the maze like nature of revelations. show less

Traitor's Purse
Margery Allingham
October 25, 2016
I finished this novel in a day. Inspector Albert Campion awakens in a hospital ward after a head injury with a certain knowledge that he has only a short time to avert some disaster, but no clear idea of who he is, or what the disaster might be. He escapes, driving wildly, followed by his girlfriend. He is convinced he is wanted by the police, but allies himself with a constable, and breaks into a secret society in an English country town; he learned he should do this from the constable. His identity is doubted, and he escapes again, encounters his accomplices, and is finally back in the hands of police, where another head trauma restores some old memories. He finally thwarts a scheme to show more ruin the finances of England on the verge of the second world war. Very well plotted, intelligent dialog, but the plot turns on neurologically unrealistic features of head injury and amnesia, although the description of Campion's thought processes when he is in his amnesia is very well done. show less