Bit of a diversion here.

When the holidays come around, I tend to reread the Golden Age of Detection... i.e., my favorite mystery authors.  Lately it's been Ngaio Marsh -- somehow I've managed to collect a third of her oeuvre, almost without noticing.

I long to reread Margery Allingham's Police at the Funeral.  (It is one of my very favorite Campion novels.)  My copy is, alas, buried deep in the storage unit.  So are nearly all my other Allingham books.  8(

The library hasn't got it, either, which is why I never got to read it until I moved to Vegas.

Margery Allingham, along with Ngaio Marsh and Agatha Christie, was one of the queens of crime fiction.  Except... you never knew if an Allingham would mean a mystery or a thriller or something else.  That's part of what I love about her work.

The Telegraph calls Margery Allingham: the Dickens of detective writing.



I just discovered that Mike Ripley has completed a partial manuscript of a Campion novel.  It's called Mr. Campion's Farewell; another, Mr. Campion's Fox, is due out next year.

Bitter Tea and Mystery has a review of Farewell here.  The Farewell review/synopsis from Kirkus.

Also see Mike Ripley Talks to Crime Time.

Margery Allingham's husband, Youngman Carter, completed the book left finished when she died; and also two books after that.  As a fan, they're not great.  Don't start with them or you will think the worst of Margery Allingham.  She wrote many great stories and also some really impressive characters.

She didn't write just mysteries.  Some of her villains are extremely creepy, but always real.

There's a reason I reread Tiger in the Smoke often.  It's a great book.  Plus, I love The Case of the Late Pig -- it has one of the best openings around -- and Police at the Funeral, and Flowers for the Judge, and Traitor's Purse...

I will always blame/credit Peter Davison for getting me into Albert Campion.  He and the BBC.  :D  Thank you, Doctor.