The Return of Albert Campion Completed by Mike Ripley
by Mike Ripley
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2014
288 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
"The idyllic English village of Lindsay Carfax isn't run by the parish council, the rating authority, the sanitary inspector nor the local cops as you might suppose. The real bosses are the Carders – something to do with wool, four hundred years back. They wound stuff on cards, I suppose. But these boys are very fly customers – they're right on the ball. Boiled down, it comes to this; they're a syndicate who run this place – which makes a packet – with their own rules. One way and another they probably own most of it."
Thus ruminated Superintendent Charles Luke to Albert Campion who was contemplating visiting his wayward artistic niece in Carfax. And when a missing schoolteacher reappeared after nine days, and Campion's car was "inadvertently" damaged, not to mention Campion himself, then all the signs were that not all was what it seemed.
Campion himself plays the central role in this quintessentially British mystery, but there are appearances too from all of Margery Allingham's regular characters, from Luke to Campion's former manservant Lugg, to his wife Lady Amanda Fitton and others. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the observation keen, and the climax is thrilling and eerily atmospheric.
"Starred Review. Allingham fans will welcome the news that Severn has commissioned a follow-up, and newcomers will be inspired to seek out her work." - Publishers Weekly
"Ripley agreed to use the fragment to write a new Campion story. He's produced a whimsical, delightful, witty, entertaining book that's part Jeeves and Wooster, part Laurel and Hardy, and part Miss Marple. Charming and full of surprises" - Booklist
"Only toward the end of this meandering, fitfully amusing, resolutely twee story does Campion become more than a sad echo of an earlier age." - Kirkus
This information about Margery Allingham's Mr Campion's Farewell was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mike Ripley is the two-time winner of the Crime Writers' Last Laugh award, and the author of several thrillers and historical novels. He writes a hugely respected monthly review column for Shots Magazine entitled getting Away with Murder. Philip Youngman Carter was Margery Allingham's artist husband and a novelist in his own right.
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