Margery Allingham's Campion Series

[bimo]

I'm currently undergoing a "Classic Mystery and Crime" phase, albeit one restricted to a very specific author, the amazing Margery Allingham, who sometimes gets credited as one of the "Four Queens of British Crime" together with Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L. Sayers

Comments

[bimo]

Yes, it's an intriguing little series, isn't it? And undeservedly neglected these days (unlike Christie and Sayers who are reprinted on a regular basis).

Here in Germany Margery Allingham doesn't even fall into the "neglected" category but is virtually unknown, in contrast to Christie and Sayers.

I discovered the Campion series only by accident, while browsing Ebay for some Dr. Who/5th Doctor related material. The TV version starring Peter Davison as Campion popped up in my search, I got curious enough to purchase some of the episodes and got hopelessly addicted ;-)

From that point it was only a small step to acquiring the individual novels. Thankfully quite a lot of them are quite easily obtainable as used copies, via amazon.co.uk. And there is also a British publishing house called Vintage, which seems to be in the process of reprinting most of the series.

These books are so much fun to read. I totally love how Allingham introduces the individual characters and always finds a way to play with the reader's expectation.

Do you have any particular favourites?