Synopses & Reviews
The Golden Age of British Detective FictionThe idyllic English village of Lindsay Carfax isn't run by the parish council, the rating authority, the sanitary inspector nor the local cops as you might suppose. The real bosses are the Carders - something to do with wool, four hundred years back. They wound stuff on cards, I suppose. But these boys are very fly customers - they're right on the ball. Boiled down, it comes to this; they're a syndicate who run this place - which makes a packet - with their own rules. One way and another they probably own most of it." Thus ruminated Superintendent Charles Luke to Albert Campion who was contemplating visiting his wayward artistic niece in Carfax. And when a missing schoolteacher reappeared after nine days, and Campion's car was "inadvertently" damaged, not to mention Campion himself, then all the signs were that not all was what it seemed. Campion himself plays the central role in this quintessentially British mystery, but there are appearances too from all of Margery Allingham's regular characters, from Luke to Campion's former manservant Lugg, to his wife Lady Amanda Fitton and others. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the observation keen, and the climax is thrilling and eerily atmospheric.
Review
"Ripley does an excellent job of expanding a story fragment that Allingham's husband, Pip Youngman Carter, began in 1969. Allingham fans will welcome the news that Severn has commissioned a follow- up, and newcomers will be inspired to seek out her work" Publishers Weekly
Review
"Ripley is almost too successful in fulfilling the bespectacled detective's ploy of making himself an ineffectual nonentity. Only toward the end of this meandering, fitfully amusing, resolutely twee story does Campion become more than a sad echo of an earlier age." Kirkus Reviews
Review
With the co-operation of the Margery Allingham Society, I have completed the untitled third novel by Pip Youngman Carter, Margery's widower, left unfinished on his death in 1969. On Margery's death in 1966, Youngman Carter completed her novel Cargo of Eagles (published 1968) and two further Campion books: Mr Campion's Farthing and Mr Campion's Falcon. He was at work on a third, which would have been the twenty-second Campion novel, when he died in November 1969.
Pip's fragment of manuscript, which contained revisions and minor corrections but no plot outline, character synopsis or plan, was bequeathed to Margery Allingham's sister Joyce; and upon her death in 2001, the manuscript was left to officials of the Margery Allingham Society (MAS). In 2010, as a guest speaker at the Society's annual convention, I first learned of Youngman Carter's unfinished novel, despite being an avid Allingham fan for more than forty years and having lived within ten miles of Pip and Margery's home in Tolleshunt d'Arcy in Essex for more than twenty.
In 2012 Barry Pike, Chairman of the Margery Allingham Society, took up my rash offer to complete Pip's manuscript as an affectionate conclusion to the adventures of Albert Campion, one of the brightest stars in the rich firmament of British crime writing. But Severn House is so enthusiastic that they have commissioned a further title Mr Campion's Fox for 2015. I must also thank Julia Jones, Margery Allingham's biographer, and novelist Andrew Taylor for their encouragement after reading early drafts."Ripley agreed to use the fragment to write a new Campion story. He's produced a whimsical, delightful, witty, entertaining book that's part Jeeves and Wooster, part Laurel and Hardy, and part Miss Marple. Charming and full of surprises" Booklist
Synopsis
When Albert Campion contemplates visiting his wayward niece in Carfax, Superintendent Charles Luke warns him that the seemingly-idyllic village isn't all it seems. And when a missing schoolteacher reappears after nine days, and Campion's car is "inadvertently" damaged - not to mention Campion himself - all signs point to this being true . . .
About the Author
I too grew up on Margery Allingham. I recall as a very young child my bookseller father bringing home each new Penguin edition for my mother, who passed them down to me when I was old enough. And I was hooked. For life. Allingham is arguably greater than Christie, and to me more readable than Sayers. So when in the course of other discussions, Mike Ripley mentioned this novel to me, I was initially sceptical. I opened up the email and started reading the first couple of chapters, became hooked, and read the manuscript through at one sitting - never expecting after 40 odd years (during which I had read and re-read my favourite Allingham's) that I would be entering into her sense of sound and place ever again. Mike Ripley has done a superb job - but I would say that wouldn't I? - and whilst this was and is a labour of love, Mr Campion's Farewell stands up to comparison with other recreations of the Golden Age such as Jill Paton Walsh and her recreation of Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey, and Sophie Hannah's homage to Christie's Hercule Poirot.