You may remember me going on about Margery Allingham before. One of the four so called Queens of crime in the mid-20th century, she certainly my particular favourite (the others being Christie, Sayers and Marsh). I've loved her novels since my early teens and, even though I don't always remember whether I've read a particular novel before till I get stuck into it, this doesn't matter a jot to me as I love them just as much on a second read.
This one, which I got from my local library recently, is only the second of her long series featuring her celebrated detective Albert Campion. Said to have been created as a sort of spoof of Lord Peter Wimsey, Albert in these early novels is rather a foolish young man, or so he appears to most of the world. Of course this is a facade, as underneath this whimsical exterior is concealed a terrifically sharp intelligence and a great deal of useful knowledge. He has certain eccentricities, one of them being his manservant Lugg, an ex-criminal who fusses around him like a mother hen. As the years went by, Allingham allowed Albert to mature, and by the later novels he has dropped his "silly ass" mannerisms and become a more serious minded, though still extremely likeable character.
In this novel, Albert meets an American family on board a liner travelling to England from New York. The father, Judge Lobbett, is in some kind of deep trouble -- several attempts have been made on his life. Albert undertakes to find a place of safety for him and his two grown-up children, Marlowe and Isopel.He takes them to a secluded manor house in Suffolk, owned by an pair of impoverished young twins. All seems to be well, but then, soon after their arrival, Judge Lobbett mysteriously disappears while exploring an old maze in the grounds. A search gets under way, but soon everyone is in grave danger.
So much for the blurb. The plot is quite exciting, and though Allingham's novels are sometimes said to be adventure stories rather than whodunnits, I didn't guess the identity of the real criminal until it was revealed. But in any case that hardly matters because the writing is so stylish, the atmosphere created so brilliant, and the characters so likeable. Here's what was said about Allingham in a literary dictionary some time ago (sorry, I've lost the link!):
The novels and stories ... are among the most distinguished in the genre – vivacious, stylish, observant, shapely, intricate and witty. They are unfailingly intelligent and imaginative, even when they do not wholly succeed
Allingham regarded the mystery novel as a box with four sides - "a Killing, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an element of satisfaction in it." Once inside the box, she felt secure: the genre gave her the discipline she felt she needed, while allowing her imagination full play to provide the "Element of Satisfaction." This she abundantly did from her first crime novel in 1928 to her last in 1968.
