1920's British detective Albert Campion is my secret crush-of-all-crushes. If I could bring one fictional character to life so I could marry them, it would not be Indiana Jones or . . . okay, I don't really have a list, it's really just Albert Campion and Indiana Jones. But Campion wins in a landslide. I think, in order to love and adore Albert Campion as I do, you have to read the following Margery Allingham books in the following order:--"The Crime at Black Dudley," her first novel, where Campion is introduced via what I feel to be a highly creative technique; the story is told from the perspective of another character who intitially thinks that Campion (because his behavior is so nutty and bizarre) is the killer. He's odd and enigmatic and quirky and hilarious and utterly charming, yet still a totally kick-ass crime-solver who pulls it all together at the end to save the day.--"Sweet Danger," where Campion meets the woman he eventually marries, who kind of annoys me, but he's awesome in this book and his relationship with her is charming and adorable. It's a great creepy supernatural mystery with Campion in top form as a crime-fighting mastermind.--"The Return of Mr. Campion," a collection of essays and short stories which are mostly negligible except an amazing essay called "My Friend Mr. Campion," where Margery Allingham talks about Campion as if he's a real person who is a friend of hers, and how she doesn't invent stuff about him as much as she sort of finds it out as she goes along. There's another essay in the book in a similar style that takes the point of view that Campion and Allingham were secretly in love with each other, and it's very bizarre and romantic.--As soon as you're sold on Detective As Romantic Hero, it's time to move on to what is, for my money, her best book: "Dancers In Mourning." Our Mr. Campion travels to the country where a houseful of nutty London theater artists are being violently killed off one by one. Hired by musical theater superstar Jimmy Sutane to find the killer, he ends up inexplicably falling in love with Sutane's quiet, decidedly UN-theatrical wife, putting him in about ten different kinds of ethical quandaries as the evidence piles up to suggest that her husband is himself the killer. If you like British mysteries, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
I am not rereading the Campion books in any order - just grabbing one from the shelf. This one I really liked. I liked a number of things that annoyed other readers; the time it takes to set the scene and establish both the characters and, importantly,the value system; Campion's reticence; and the long sentences! Allingham may sketch some characters and create caracatures, or types, but she also probes and captures human motivation and response in ways that resonate. She has the capacity to take a reader into a world of idiosyncratic and exaggerated behaviour that nevertheless reflects what we have all experienced in our far more mundane lives."He spoke with genuine regret and it was the first intimation Mr Campion had of the curious relationship between Linda Sutane and the brilliant company which surrounded her husband. It was a perfectly amicable relationship based on deep respect on both sides, but kept apart by something as vital and insurmountable as a difference in species."I particularly enjoy the ethical dilemmas that influence characters, Campion in particular. These are dealt with in a continuous and integrated way." 'Take a tip from an old pro and don't feel it personally,' he [Blest] said. 'That's always the trouble with us. We come up against nice people, people we can understand and enjoy a drink with, and then out comes the dirty linen and it gets us down if we aren't careful. Once we start thinking about right and wrong and extenuating circumstances we're sunk. Take it from me.' "The setting and characters are over-the-top as usual and the 'Jonathan Creek' conjuring element lurks. Allingham plays this to effect as Campion follows all the correct evidence towards a mistaken conclusion. A really good read that makes me glad I have chosen to reread these.
What do You think about Dancers In Mourning (1990)?
I loved this. I've read a few Margery Allinghams now and thought this one the best so far. I enjoyed the theatrical milieu and the sub-plot of Campion falling in love with a married woman added a moral dimension to what was already an engrossing mystery. There was the usual fascinating collection of characters, but Allingham managed to explore them in depth within the confines of the detective genre. The denouement was tense & unexpected and I was turning the pages very fast. The way she handled the final revelations was technically very clever - so clever I needed to look back and check she hadn't cheated. (She hadn't.) Allingham was a superb author of detective fiction, but more than that she was a superb *novelist*.Highly recommended, though if you're new to Albert Campion, you might want to start earlier in the series.
—Linda Gillard
This book was a tough read. The story kept my interest but the writing could have been done with a lighter touch. Nobody wants to read a book filled with simple sentences, but conversely trudging through paragraph length sentence after paragraph length sentence is a slog. You need to mix it up a little. Based on just this novel which isn't fair, Allingham was a good writer but no Steinbeck or Hemingway. Arriving at seems to be around the middle of the Campion books, I have some curiosity regarding the story arc of Albert Campion, but I have a 100s of other books on the shelves to finish before I go looking for more.
—Scoats
Song and dance man Jimmy Sutane should have no enemies. Popular and successful, he inspires affection rather than dislike. Except that there is someone out there who doesn't agree. Nasty little tricks are plaguing Sutane - a pin in a stick of greasepaint, a boquet of wild garlic tossed onto the stage. The petty incidents are getting him down, driving him into a state of nervousness that is starting to affect both his work and private life. Sutane's latest hit is based on the (invented) memoirs of Uncle William Farraday (from Police at the Funeral) and it is Uncle William who calls in Mr Campion. Complications abound for Campion as the campaign of petty tricks escalates, one of Sutane's house-guests and co-stars dies in strange circumstances and Campion finds himself losing his usual objectivity as he falls in love with Sutane's wife. I'll admit straight up that I was disappointed with this book (as my rating probably shows). It started off well, but I felt it got mired in its own cleverness. Campion shifted in and out of character, which I guess was part of the point, but it just didn't work for me. We spent the whole book following what in the end proved to be a major red herring and that really annoyed me. It was a pleasure to see Uncle William again, but when he's the best thing in the book and he's still a silly old buffer, it's a fair indication this isn't the best of the Campion books. Read it for completeness as I did, but I don't personally think it'll be a regular reread.[Copied across from Library Thing; 27 September 2012]
—Kerry
