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A review by saroz162
Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham
4.0
After three books, for the first time, Allingham takes Campion out of the thriller genre and into a much more traditional manor house murder mystery. And while she doesn't leave the solution as apparent as, say, Agatha Christie might, most of the major clues are on open display to the reader, and there is every possibility they will be able to guess at the solution before it is revealed. Allingham shows her skill at misdirection to the point where the solution, when it comes, feels almost obvious. How could you miss that? But you do. It's very clever.
Part of Allingham's misdirection is, as always, her presentation of tremendously vivid characters. This time, there's a whole houseful, lorded over by the tiny but dominating personality of eighty-six-year-old Caroline Faraday, who keeps a raven's watchful eye on her flighty and selfish family. We are reminded again and again that all emotion seems to have been driven from her personality in her attempt to keep control, and it is to this end that she enlists Campion as her personal eyes and ears during the investigation. The intellectual dance they keep up through the novel is almost beguiling: one, masked in stoicism, the other, masked as a fool. Their interactions lead to a delightful and surprising resolution.
Police at the Funeral comes at the end of an intense writing period for Allingham, which may explain the lackluster title; after this, she took a longer-than-usual break before the next in the series. Perhaps she even contemplated ending it here. Had that been the case, it doubtless would have ended Mr. Campion's adventures on a very high note; this is a strong, assured piece of work, very engaging and well on-par with more famous mysteries of the period. Like Mr. Campion himself, it deserves better recognition.
Part of Allingham's misdirection is, as always, her presentation of tremendously vivid characters. This time, there's a whole houseful, lorded over by the tiny but dominating personality of eighty-six-year-old Caroline Faraday, who keeps a raven's watchful eye on her flighty and selfish family. We are reminded again and again that all emotion seems to have been driven from her personality in her attempt to keep control, and it is to this end that she enlists Campion as her personal eyes and ears during the investigation. The intellectual dance they keep up through the novel is almost beguiling: one, masked in stoicism, the other, masked as a fool. Their interactions lead to a delightful and surprising resolution.
Police at the Funeral comes at the end of an intense writing period for Allingham, which may explain the lackluster title; after this, she took a longer-than-usual break before the next in the series. Perhaps she even contemplated ending it here. Had that been the case, it doubtless would have ended Mr. Campion's adventures on a very high note; this is a strong, assured piece of work, very engaging and well on-par with more famous mysteries of the period. Like Mr. Campion himself, it deserves better recognition.