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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
medium-paced
I enjoyed this, my first Margery Allingham. Albert Campion is engaging and the characters all fascinatingly drawn. A lot of plot and mystery in a short book and I didn't guess the solution. Although I'm not 100% sure I am satisfied with it either.
Content Warnings
Minor: Racial slurs
Enjoyed this one a bit more than the earlier books in the Campion series, probably because this one doesn't feature an implausibly huge organized crime syndicate.
I love old British mysteries. Allingham is one of the best to rival Christie . Campion is one of my favourite detectives .
These are good, palate cleansing, plot driven mysteries, a la Agatha Christie. This was quite a bit racist (use of the n word threw me). Written in the 1930's but still jarring.
One of the least affected Allingham books I've read, which serves it well. Interesting characters and a murder riddle. Lugg is mostly absent.
I didn't particularly enjoy the book preceding this one - I felt it very long-winded and terribly slow to get off the ground - and was wondering if I would give up on the series. This one was straight into the story, with an excellent opening page and really good follow-through that kept things happening all the way. Very 1930s, of course, which is great. There's nothing like reading an historical novel that was contemporary when it was written.
I'll check out the next in the series in the hope that it's of the same calibre as this.
I'll check out the next in the series in the hope that it's of the same calibre as this.
The writing was good, but the ending, the solution to the mystery, was way too preposterous to be enjoyable. I might give Allingham another try one day.
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Very clever story, but disturbingly “of its time” in that the central blackmail-worthy scandal is that someone probably had a black ancestor. Phrases like “the stain in the woman’s blood”, and “a touch of the tarbrush” kind of detract from the great story.
Although I'm a pretty voracious Golden Age of mysteries reader, I missed out on Allingham and asked for a good place to start. This was one of the more popular suggestions, and it turned out to be a great read. It isn't so deep in to the series, but the author has gotten her feet under her. (I read Black Dudley next, and it was fun, but erratic.) So I'm glad to have another series to dig into, especially one with such a fun detective.