Customer Reviews

The Fashion in Shrouds: #10 Albert Campion (Volume 10)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an Albert Campion mystery! How could it not be good!?! I thought I had collected the whole series and found this - what a TREAT! (Perhaps it was not released in the US until recently?) Anyway, as always with these books - an excellent story and fun characterizations!

This nicely published edition I bought from Amazon was an essential addition to my collection of Albert Campion novels. In it Allingham introduces Campion's sister and also we meet his future wife again after a gap of eight years (or so?).

I'm glad I decided to reread these books again; I read most of them when I was devouring the classics of the genre in the 1980's, and I'd forgotten how wonderfully well Margery Allingham writes. The Fashion in Shrouds is a terrific example.

This is one of the Albert Campion mystery series. It's set in the 1930's, though there is little that actually brings that era to mind. For those of you who don't care much for "dated" material, there is nothing jarring about the story. It could easily have happened today. For those of you who, like I, enjoy a historical ambiance, it can be a little disappointing. One can only say that the author wasn't aware that the period during which she wrote would be "sepia tinted" and "quaint" decades down the line! For either group of readers, if you want to see what the period was like, I'd recommend the Albert Campion BBC series, Campion - The Complete First Season, which illustrates the ambiance superbly.

The activity is somewhat disbursed, taking place at a high fashion designer's, at Amanda Fitten's home, at a fashionable hotel, at an airlines, etc. In short it's not a manor house mystery like those of Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles: A Detective Story. The writing style is delightfully readable, though those who have been saturated in modern mysteries which tend to be almost all dialogue and no description may find it less to their liking. Description is vivid and creates definite visual images, and the vocabulary is extensive enough to be fluid rather than repetitious, yet it is not so vaunted as to be arch and faux, as though the author kept a thesaurus at her elbow. Dialogue is realistic, and while it partakes of some of the witty banter popular in literature and cinema of the time, it doesn't seem quite so over the top to the modern ear as some products of the same vintage do. The tale is well plotted, with clues carefully planted. There are a few well crafted red herrings interspersed among them to throw the reader off the trail, but the the dénouement is appropriate. In short the reader doesn't feel "cheated" by a massive plot manipulation introduced to make the whole thing come out "surprising."

A lovely vintage mystery.

Once more Margery Allingham leads the way. Anyone who knows British mystery does NOT need a preview of the story - just the fact it's an Allingham is enough. Excellent always.

Most of what's available by Ms. Allingham on Amazon is in audiobook format. Amazon offers infinite excuses for offering books in limited formats. But the exercise of making an audiobook is obviously more intensive than simply scanning a text file. It's less lucrative. too. I guess. But something is rotten when fifty year old mass market fiction is only available in expensive high-end formats.

This is my least favorite Campion, even though it's a good mystery. The anti-feminist views that were 'normal' for the 1930s don't sit very well with a 21st Century reader.

Two women vie for the same man in this novel: Campion's sister Val, an haute courtier dress designer; and Georgia Wells, an actress, who is basically a brainless female piranha. For all their success in their respective careers, these two women cannot overcome "the dreadful primitive weakness of the female of any species." Georgia is already married, but that doesn't stop her from pitching herself at Val's boyfriend, Alan Dell, an airplane designer. Alan falls for Georgia and Georgia's husband conveniently dies. When the police learn that the unfortunate husband was poisoned, Val (go figure) becomes the chief suspect.

Campion must identify the true murderer in order to save his sister's reputation, and possibly her life, as well as sort out his own feelings for Amanda Fitton, another airplane designer whom we first met in Sweet Danger (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries) (Albert Campion).

Alan finally dumps Georgia and returns to Val with a marriage proposal:

"Will you marry me and give up to me your independence, the enthusiasm which you give your career, your time and your thought?...In return...I should assume full responsibility for you. I would pay your bills...I would make all decisions which were not directly in your province, although on the other hand I would like to feel that I might discuss everything with you if I wanted to; but only because I wanted to, mind you; not as your right..."

He goes on in a similar fashion for quite awhile, and Val immediately answers, `Yes.'

I think she should have responded with a knee to his groin, at the very least. What a pompous, two-timing creep!

Allingham later acknowledged that this book was overwritten and trimmed it for inclusion in a 1965 omnibus. I hope she trimmed out the marriage proposal scene.

Here is a complete list of the Campion novels that Allingham wrote ("Cargo of Eagles" was completed by her husband after her death in 1966). There are also short story collections and Campion novels that were written by her husband, Youngman Carter, which I didn't include in this list.

1. The Black Dudley Murder aka The Crime at Black Dudley (1929)
2. Mystery Mile (1930)
3. Look to the Lady aka The Gyrth Chalice Mystery (1931)
4. Police at the Funeral (1931)
5. Sweet Danger aka Kingdom of Death aka The Fear Sign (1933)
6. Death of a Ghost (1934)
7. Flowers for the Judge (1936)
8. The Case of the Late Pig (1937)
9. Dancers in Mourning aka Who Killed Chloe? (1937)
10. The Fashion in Shrouds (1938)
11. Traitor's Purse aka The Sabotage Murder Mystery (1941)
12. Pearls before Swine (1945)
13. More Work for the Undertaker (1948)
14. The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)
15. Estate of the Beckoning Lady (1955)
16. Tether's End (1958)
17. The China Governess (1963)
18. The Mind Readers (1965)
19. Cargo of Eagles (1968)

There is NO information on what this book is about. With all its exuberant expansion into every kind of merchandise, Amazon has yet to establish a department whose task it is to supply brief descriptions of content of the books they sell. This is the equivalent of selling clothes without size tags. Customers are only allowed to know the content of a book if there was a newpaper or magazine review that Amazon can easily import onto its pages.

One wonders if even this meager effort to provide information is done comprehensively with an organized search of review organs, or only sporadically, when someone gets around to it. Whatever the answer, the effect is infuriating.