The Fashion in Shrouds

I've been a bit curmudgeonly about the novels I've read lately, both here and on Cornflower Books. So it is really nice to be able to say that I really loved this book. I've been a fan of Margery Allingham since I was 13, and as I read this one I had a very faint deja vu feeling, so I know I must have read it before, but luckily did not remember very much at all about it. I've been re-reading Allingham from time to time in the past few years, and I can definitely say that this is my favorite so far. Published in 1938 and set in the world of fashion and theatre, it tells a complex story of love, obsession and death. At the centre of all these themes is the beautiful actress Georgia Wells. Lovely, charming, amoral, she seems almost childlike in her inability to really know herself, or to be able to distinguish between acting and real life. Men, as Marlene Dietrich would say, flock around her like moths around a flame, and like those moths they generally get singed, if not burned to death. One of her ex's is found dead at the start of the novel and another dies soon afterwards. Not content with all the ones she already has, she poaches the lover of her best friend Valentine. Val is a top couturier, who happens also to be the sister of the great, quiet, unassuming but brilliant detective Albert Campion. So Albert is involved, and so is his friend Amanda Fitton, a young girl he first met some years earlier. In fact these two announce a pretended engagement, which ends dramatically later in the book. But I will not tell you what happens in the end, obviously, though believe me the plot is extremely convoluted and the identity of the murderer came as a surprise to me.
Allingham is a really fine writer, and a pleasure to read. But I have to say that if you read this book you will have to make some allowances for the period in which it was written. It gives a most astonishing and presumably accurate picture of London society on the brink of World War Two, though this does not get a mention here. But in places it is far from politically correct, so remember that issues of class, race and gender were a good deal less sensitive than they are today. That being said, Allingham has a wonderful ability to see into the hearts of her characters, and writes of human relationships with a great deal of understanding. Lovely. I was sorry to finish it.