This was another Kindle read and was a reasonably satisfactory reading experience. It might take the next generation of Kindle to really get me hooked, but anyway, on to the review.
A great plus point of Allingham's work, and this sounds like I am being patronising, is that they are so short. Let me explain; a typical Campion outing runs to around 200 pages, which is not a great investment in terms of time. However, what she delivers in those relatively few pages is a lesson in characterisation, plotting and humour.
As is common with Campion 'mysteries', there is no big reveal, no startling change of pace, no Poirot style denouement. What you get is a straightforward mystery with a spot of adventure thrown in to the mix. Campion is back from the war as the book begins. The war isn't over, but is drawing to a conclusion and appears to have left all concerned very weary of it.
We've not heard from Campion since 'Traitor's Purse', but he's been busy on war work. The plan is to call in to the flat in Bottle Street before heading off to catch a train to an unspecified destination. A cracking opening ensues, encapsulating the confusion that must have been everywhere on the 'Home Front'. Campion is back in London briefly, but hasn't been in touch with his chief acolyte and Bottle-street-washer Lugg. He's somewhat surprised to hear Lugg's dulcet tones coming up the stairs to that flat and is even more concerned to find that he has a corpse with him.
That's pretty much the setup, and a great premise it is. As in 'Traitor's Purse' (a personal favourite among the Campion books), there is something sinister going on in the background relating to the war, which moves things along nicely.
Allingham's characters are so well drawn that you start to believe in them, which makes reading books like this a joy. There is a constant torrent of post-war fiction trying to tell 'how it really was' in wartime Britain. This is of course a contemporary account, suggesting that it was tedious, unhappy and as far from glamorous and exciting as it could possibly be. That sounds as if it is a miserable and morose work. I isn't, that terrible phrase 'human spirit' flows through it in rivulets.
I have a copy of 'This Oaken Heart', Allingham's non-fiction account of lfe in an Essex village in wartime. That was written, I believe, between 'Traitor's Purse' and 'Coroner's Pidgin'. I think it might be time to read that rather soon.
Campion in this book has mostly lost the flippancy of the earlier books and declares his weariness at several points. He's well on his way to becoming the interesting character that emerges in 'The Tiger in the Smoke' and far from the shipboard mouse-magician of 'Mystery Mile'.
This was a satisfying and interesting read rather than a revelatory or exciting one. I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for anyone new to Allingham or Campion. The honour for that would go to the aforementioned 'Mystery Mile'. If anyone asked me to recommend one Campion book to them, I would say that they need to read two; 'Sweet Danger' and 'The Tiger in the Smoke'. I would then point out to my inquisitor that those two slim volumes together amount to significantly fewer pages than Jo Nesbo or, heaven forfend, Dan Brown offering.
Highlight of the book for me - Lugg in the square, a touching moment!
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