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A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY Agatha Christie called her 'a shining light'. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? A baker's dozen of cases, each putting Albert Campion through his paces. In this miscellany of villainy, our unconventional sleuth must contend with misbehaving debutantes, sinister smuggling rings, a Dowager Countess who's not all that she seems, an SOS message daubed in lipstick, a beleaguered New York socialite, and an elderly show more Egyptologist indulging in some bad behaviour... show lessTags
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13 short stories with Campion solving mainly society based mysteries. he fits well in his environment and there is enough variety that they don't become too similar. They do share a tendency to tell you the solution & how Campion arrived at it, rather than let you spot it yourself. but that's probably artifact of the format. He works well in this format, this was a nice change of pace.
A perfectly enjoyable set of stories featuring Albert Campion and of course his foil, Stanislaus Oates. While the formula remains constant, there is enough ingenuity in the plot twists and certainly enough entertainment in the prose that one can finish the collection and still hope for more. These are sentences worth remembering: “After all, as he said, a broken heart takes at least twenty-four hours to mend without a seam and, while he was prepared to believe that life with a young woman of Miss Lea’s uncontrolled and vituperative tongue might drive a man to suicide, he mightyet need a day or two to get used to his merciful deliverance.”
My absolute favorite if Allingham's work --like Ellery Queen and some others, she was a great short story writer but her novels tend to be gloomy. Most of these stories are delightfully light and witty. My favorite is probably "The Old Man in the Window" about a 90 year old actor who covers up his own attempted murder.
Thirteen Mr Campion stories. As the blurb says, 'in nearly every case the trouble is blackmail or the predicament some charming young lady has landed herself in'. The charmingness is more tested than in the novels as yet another undifferentiated heroine sits on Mr Campion's sofa alongside her adoring decent young man, and the plot needs of a short story demand absurd levels of coincidence, but it's entertaining enough stuff.
Delightful selection of short stories featuring society detective Albert Campion. Some interesting parallels with Dorothy Sayers stories - try "The Old Man in the Window" and Sayers "Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club" and "The Definite Article" and Sayers' "The Article in Question". Don't know when these stories were originally published so don't know who was first!
Thirteen exciting stories Overlaps but does not completely correspond to The casebook of Mr. Campion Different in contents from the Heineman ed. of the same title.
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132+ Works 20,317 Members
Margery Allingham, one of England's leading mystery writers, was born on May 20, 1904, in Ealing, a western suburb of London, but grew up in a remote village in Essex. Both of her parents were writers, and Margery carried on that tradition when she sold her first short story as an eight-year-old. At the Regent Street Polytechnic, she continued show more writing and studied drama and speech. While there, she wrote a verse play, Dido and Aeneas, in which she had a starring role during performances in London. At age 19, Allington published her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick. She wrote another novel, The White Cottage Mystery, before creating her most famous character, Albert Campion, in The Black Dudley Murder (published in England as The Crime at Black Dudley) in 1929. Allington went on to create twenty-eight more Campion mysteries, including several collections. She wrote more than 10 other novels, some under the pseudonym Maxwell March, as well as four novellas and sixty-four short stories. During World War II, Allingham served as First Aid Commandant for her district, organized the billeting and care of evacuees from London, and allowed her house to be turned into a temporary military base for eight officers and two hundred men of the Cameronians. The war greatly deepened Allingham's passion for her country, as evidenced in her later works. Allingham died of cancer on June 30, 1966. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Queen's Quorum (The Second Moderns – 92)
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Contains
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Mr. Campion and Others
- Original title
- Mr. Campion and Others
- Original publication date
- 1939-03 (collection) (collection)
- People/Characters
- Albert Campion; Stanislaus Oates (Superintendent); Lance Feering
- First words
- The second prettiest girl in Mayfair was thanking Superintendent Stanislaus Oates for the recovery of her diamond bracelet and the ring with the square-cut emerald in it, and Mr. Campion, who had accompanied her to the ceremo... (show all)ny, was admiring her technique.
- Quotations
- "Forgive me, but you're holding up the traffic rather seriously, you know," he ventured mildly. "There's a bus having apoplexy just behind you. And I see a traffic policeman gazing over here with unhealthy interest."
He paid for this fit of apparent lunacy a few days later when he sat beside that paralyzing old lady in the corner of a ballroom which was not so much decorated as obliterated with heavily scented flowers. - Original language
- English
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 413
- Popularity
- 74,722
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (3.56)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 10
