There's a warm tribute to Margery Allingham, one of the "Four Queens of Crime", according to insightful blogger and columnist Sarah Weinman in today's Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...000890008.html
Allingham's detective, Albert Campion, is a curious sort of hero: foppish, humourous and sometimes only peripherally part of the key action. Certainly in the first novel,
The Crime of Black Dudley (1929), which as it happens I have just recently completed, Campion's role is obtuse and never quite explained; nor is he around for the final moments of triumph. In point of fact, the tale is set around George Abbershaw, a young doctor, and several of his friends who attend a weekend party out in the country. Campion turns up in the mix, and no one quite knows who invited him but eventually they are grateful he's about. Abbershaw, however, nurtures the notion Campion is the murderer ... and of course it's the murder early on which sets the tale in motion. Almost all the action takes place in the country house (fiendish Germans and their henchmen for a time take control and hold the party hostage) -- a splendid setting for a clever summer stock play.
The catch for readers today is that none of Allingham's work are (legally) in ebooks and the current reissues from paperback publisher Felony & Mayhem are amusingly priced at $15 each. (I absolutely applaud the work produced by this firm -- see
here for a great backlist of pre-1965 mysteries, but none of their work is available for e-readers. Pity.)