The Book Depository Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham
865 ratings
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Price: £10.98
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: Mystery Mile : Paperback : Vintage Publishing : 9780099474692 : 0099474697 : 09 Jan 2007 : Agatha Christie called her 'a shining light'. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? Judge Crowdy Lobbett is a man of justice, an upstanding pillar of American society. And now he's a man in deadly peril, tailed across the Atlantic by the ruthless Simister gang. The Book Depository Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9780099474692
MPN: 0099474697
GTIN: 9780099474692
Author: Iveljay
Rating: 5
Review: An excellent early Campion that lays the groundwork for some of the later stories, particularly his avoidance of future female attachments, particularly in Look to the Lady, this only really gets resolved in Sweet Danger and The Fashion in Shrouds. This is one of the attractions of Albert Campion, he grows up from a young and careless individual in the early stories to a somewhat older and perhaps darker person after the Second World War in Hide my eyes etc. This book is pretty well essential reading as it has Campion as a fully formed leading character, unlike The Crime at Black Dudley, where he is more of a supporting character, but does introduce Simisters.
Author: LurcherLady
Rating: 1
Review: Much of the slang, from the toffs, yokels and London working class is incomprehensible. The casual racism (did you know you could recognise a Turk by the shape of his head?) and snobbery are very much of its time, but is quite shocking now. The writing is strange, even allowing for the time it was written - I don't believe so many words have changed their meaning in the intervening period, so Allingham must have used words she didn't really understand just because they sounded good (or clever). Weird character names - why? Silly plot device of calling a house Redding Knights, and placing it in a village called Kepesake. It would work in a comedy, but here just looks as if the author clung to using a particular artefact, and had to come up with a rediculous explanation. Campion, our hero, is not a likeable character, and I didn't care about his fate. It's a brave move to have an unsympathetic main character, but I don't think it works here. He comes across as a poor man's Peter Whimsey - I don't know which was created first, but Dorothy L Sayers made a much better fist of it, in the characterisation, the writing and her plots.
