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Jul. 31st, 2010 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaTHE CRIME AT BLACK DUDLEY, by Margery Allingham.
Cover copy: A house-party with a glittering guest-list. An imposing country estate with endless shadowy staircases and unused rooms. The breathless period between the two world wars. It's the ideal setting for the classic English murder mystery, and bringing it to perfection is the introduction - in a supporting role, for the first and last time - of Albert Campion, the consummate (if compulsively quipping) Gentleman Sleuth.
The guests take some time to be grateful for Campion's presence: he is a bit peculiar, and they have more than enough distractions, what with various complicated love affairs, a curious ritual involving a jeweled dagger, and a deadly game of hide-and-seek. But the savvy reader will be singing hosannas from Campion's first appearance, knowing that it marks the beginning of one of the most intelligent and delightful series in the history of crime fiction.
Gender of detective: male
And that detective, notwithstanding the back cover, is not Campion. It's someone named George Abbershaw, who supposedly assists Scotland Yard and is a doctor and is alternately Kirk and Spock, metaphorically speaking, depending on the needs of the narration and whether the girl he's madly in love with is around. At first, Campion is just one of several background characters, rather nonsensical, vaguely sketchy, but still background. He gets sketchier as things progress: someone is murdered, something is stolen, they're all being held prisoner in this house by a German whom the narration persists in calling a 'Hun'. (Yes. Well. Dearly though I love Allingham's work, I cannot and will not claim that sensitivity to, well, much of anything is one of her strong points. Even the best of her work tends to include racism, sexism, and classism.)
Finally, about a third of the way into the book, Abbershaw turns to Campion and tells him grandly that he can stop the masquerade, Mr. Mornington Dodd. And Campion blinks at him, smiles, and tells him that he's always like that, no masquerade at all. And here are a couple other aliases that Abbershaw missed. And by the way, here's a quantity of information explaining the situation they're in, which Abbershaw didn't know.
From that point on, until they finally escape the house, it's Campion's show. He's the mastermind behind the escape plan that doesn't work, as well as the escape plan that does: he keeps everyone's spirits up: he faces down the villain with far more equanimity than Abbershaw does. Once they're out of the house, the author quickly shuffles Campion off the scene, as if afraid that Campion would solve the murder, too, given the chance, and leave Abbershaw nothing to do. But by that point, Campion already has the book in his pocket, and we don't particularly care about the murder (which is solved less by logic and more by something Abbershaw chanced to see, but conveniently doubted/forgot until it came time for the end of the novel).
*
We has salads. And chicken. And tea, although I may go for soda instead, just to be different.
Team Mariposa, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me (thank you,celtic_maenad!).
Cover copy: A house-party with a glittering guest-list. An imposing country estate with endless shadowy staircases and unused rooms. The breathless period between the two world wars. It's the ideal setting for the classic English murder mystery, and bringing it to perfection is the introduction - in a supporting role, for the first and last time - of Albert Campion, the consummate (if compulsively quipping) Gentleman Sleuth.
The guests take some time to be grateful for Campion's presence: he is a bit peculiar, and they have more than enough distractions, what with various complicated love affairs, a curious ritual involving a jeweled dagger, and a deadly game of hide-and-seek. But the savvy reader will be singing hosannas from Campion's first appearance, knowing that it marks the beginning of one of the most intelligent and delightful series in the history of crime fiction.
Gender of detective: male
And that detective, notwithstanding the back cover, is not Campion. It's someone named George Abbershaw, who supposedly assists Scotland Yard and is a doctor and is alternately Kirk and Spock, metaphorically speaking, depending on the needs of the narration and whether the girl he's madly in love with is around. At first, Campion is just one of several background characters, rather nonsensical, vaguely sketchy, but still background. He gets sketchier as things progress: someone is murdered, something is stolen, they're all being held prisoner in this house by a German whom the narration persists in calling a 'Hun'. (Yes. Well. Dearly though I love Allingham's work, I cannot and will not claim that sensitivity to, well, much of anything is one of her strong points. Even the best of her work tends to include racism, sexism, and classism.)
Finally, about a third of the way into the book, Abbershaw turns to Campion and tells him grandly that he can stop the masquerade, Mr. Mornington Dodd. And Campion blinks at him, smiles, and tells him that he's always like that, no masquerade at all. And here are a couple other aliases that Abbershaw missed. And by the way, here's a quantity of information explaining the situation they're in, which Abbershaw didn't know.
From that point on, until they finally escape the house, it's Campion's show. He's the mastermind behind the escape plan that doesn't work, as well as the escape plan that does: he keeps everyone's spirits up: he faces down the villain with far more equanimity than Abbershaw does. Once they're out of the house, the author quickly shuffles Campion off the scene, as if afraid that Campion would solve the murder, too, given the chance, and leave Abbershaw nothing to do. But by that point, Campion already has the book in his pocket, and we don't particularly care about the murder (which is solved less by logic and more by something Abbershaw chanced to see, but conveniently doubted/forgot until it came time for the end of the novel).
*
We has salads. And chicken. And tea, although I may go for soda instead, just to be different.
Team Mariposa, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me (thank you,
celtic_maenad!).