Traitor's Purse
Margary Allingham
( Penguin, 1941)
One of my favourite Campion novels, which I bought just to have it in the classic Penguin green and cream design. An amnesiac Campion wakes in a hospital, suspected of murder.
One of the reasons I like the Campion novels is that he goes through WW2 and emerges a different character. You can contrast the early novels like Mystery Mile in which he is a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Bertie Wooster with these later novels (Traitor's Purse, More Work for the Undertaker etc) in which he has ended up a government agent albeit one still with Woosterish mannerisms. Allingham writes war and post-War Britain with a staggering grinding sense of impoverishment so Campion's changing character reflects the changing eras.
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1 comment:
I can see a lot of my spare time disappearing into an investigation of this reading blog....
What do you think of the really late Campions where he's receded into the background completely (Hide My Eyes; The China Governess)?
A slightly irrelevant thought:As a Campion reader and one-time DW writer: have you ever thought there are some parallels between the two protagonists? I keep thinking, on and off, of posting something to OG along the lines of ``can you guess who this is?" (i.e. a character description and plot list that could apply to both).
Regards,
yemon
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