Cargo of Eagles

Albert Campion #19

by Margery Allingham, Youngman Carter (Contributor)

Strange things are happening in Saltey. The little village on the Essex coast is invaded by bikers and a parade of peculiar visitors; a newly-released prisoner is rumoured to be in the area, Mr Lugg has bought a bungalow there, the Saltey Demon is on the loose again, and Albert Campion is investigating the disappearance of thousands of pounds of gold coinage.

This is the last of the Allingham novels, overflowing with evil arch villains and classic thuggery against the atmospheric backdrop of post-war East London.


Cargo of Eagles was first published in 1968 and was completed by Allingham's husband, Philip Youngman Carter. In the US, it was published as Mr Campion's Quarry


PRAISE FOR MARGERY ALLINGHAM

‘Spending an evening with Campion is one of life’s pure pleasures’ — The Sunday Times

‘The best of mystery writers’ — The New Yorker

‘The Campion series as a whole demonstrates the breadth of what’s possible in a crime novel, and Allingham’s restlessness with the genre’s constraints.’ — Sarah Weinman, The Wall Street Journal

'Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light.' — Agatha Christie

‘My very favourite of the four Queens of crime is Allingham’ — JK Rowling

‘Margery Allingham deserves to be rediscovered.’ — PD James

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, British Literature, Classics, Detective, Espionage

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Aka Maxwell March.

Margery Louise Allingham was born in Ealing, London in 1904 to a family of writers. Her father, Herbert John Allingham, was editor of The Christian Globe and The New London Journal, while her mother wrote stories for women's magazines as Emmie Allingham. Margery's aunt, Maud Hughes, also ran a magazine. Margery earned her first fee at the age of eight, for a story printed in her aunt's magazine.

Soon after Margery's birth, the family left London for Essex. She returned to London in 1920 to attend the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster), and met her future husband, Philip Youngman Carter. They married in 1928. He was her collaborator and designed the cover jackets for many of her books.

Margery's breakthrough came 1929 with the publication of her second novel, The Crime at Black Dudley . The novel introduced Albert Campion, although only as a minor character. After pressure from her American publishers, Margery brought Campion back for Mystery Mile and continued to use Campion as a character throughout her career.

After a battle with breast cancer, Margery died in 1966. Her husband finished her last novel, A Cargo of Eagles at her request, and published it in 1968.

Also wrote as: Maxwell March

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This final book in the Campion series was worth reading. I haven't read even half of the 19 books, but I have tried to read more than that number...leaving some unfinished. I know this one was finished by her husband per her wishes and I felt the flow of the action was seamless.

Unusually, the time period for this adventure is the 1960's. The descriptions of the town and the inhabitants of Saltey were fairly amusing as were many of the "salty" incidents that the crew of investigators happened on or were involved in. The area's history of smuggling and secretive citizens was foundational to why Campion was tapped with the job of discovery after a criminal was released from prison. This particular perp had remained silent over his years of incarceration with regard to some missing cargo important to the British government.

The timing of the prisoner's release synced with the death of a woman who owned Hollies, a Saltey house that she willed to a lady doctor she met and liked and was also the focus of much "townie" speculation.

The espionage factor wins in the end, allowing some crime to be forgotten as the precious cargo is found by Campion and handled with care.

Library Loan

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cargo of Eagles was finished after Margery Allingham's death by her husband Youngman Carter, who apparently completed it based on notes that Allingham left behind. Sadly, the last of the original series (if you count this one because Allingham started it) leaves a lot to be desired. I think it suffers from too many tangents leading to a bit of tedium for the reader. I found myself wanting to just get through it (which is really sad, if you think about it for a minute). The basic plot was good, but it took SO long to get to a resolution that at the end I actually didn't care about it.

Brief decription, no spoilers: The small village of Saltey captures the interest of quite a few characters: a doctor who has recently inherited a house from a near stranger; an American historian who is spending a year in Britain doing research on approaches to London in the 17th and 18th centuries; several motorcycle gangs, and some unsavory characters as well. Saltey used to be home to smugglers and pirates, and at one time was "visited by a demon." Now it seems it is also home to a murderer who has a secret to keep -- but it's one that Campion must figure out to help solve his own secret mission.

I would recommend it probably to people who are working on finishing the series, but likely not to others. It normally doesn't take me long to finish one of these novels, but this one was just not up to par with most of the other books in the series.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was Margery Allingham’s final Albert Campion novel, completed after her death by her husband, Pip Youngman Carter. It is set in a rather bleak Essex village, where young tearaways are terrorising the villagers and a poison pen writer is harassing Dr Dido Jones, who has unexpectedly inherited a house in the village.

Allingham often mixes different crimes in her mysteries - in this case espionage, smuggling and murder - and Campion’s role is to untangle the threads, discard the irrelevant and clear everything up. Throughout the book, there are subtle hints and characters talking in riddles, misdirection and hidden clues. At times, these can baffle even the most careful reader but I’ve now become accustomed to the style and enjoy the moments of illumination.

It is fitting that the series ends here - the world of the 60s with Mods and Rockers fits slightly uneasily with the history of Campion’s post-War activities - and this is a novel that pulls past and present crimes together very well. I have really enjoyed following Campion through his career and, despite the lack of Superintendent Luke in this outing, found this a very satisfying ending.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent . It's very well written and if the publishers had not mentioned that it was finished by PYC, I would not have caught onto it.
This book ,like it's predecessor, is more of a spy story than a whodunnit.But this is a fitting finale to Mr. Campions adventures as it has something of everything .It has pirates,treasures,dead bodies ,adventure,spies and romance.It has a lot of Mr. Lugg,Oates and Mr. Campion himself, though the lightheartedness of the early Campions is a thing of the distant past .
It starts of a bit slow and till the last 3 chapters ,it does not add up to much as clues that are revealed are totally unrelated apparently unless you know what Mr. Campion knew. But this is not a fair play whodunnit, and the last chapters makes up for any frustration accumulated during the earlier chapters.
The creation of the locale,people and the atmosphere is masterly done as usual and even though I read this book during weekdays across 7 separate sessions,I never felt I had left Saltey.
This novel reminded me of books by Gavin Lyall and Desmond Bagley and left me wondering about the versatility of Mrs. Allingham. The best of the 4 mystery queens in my opinion.

[Abigail Bok · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cargo of Eagles was the last novel Margery Allingham wrote, and she only got through part of it; her husband picked up where she left off and finished the book. He wasn’t the writer she was.

The story starts in classic Allingham style, with cryptic conversations and a mystery whose dimensions are unclear to the reader. Allingham doesn’t follow traditional murder-mystery patterns—somebody dies, somebody else figures out why and whodunit; often in the early chapters of her books, we can’t even see what it is we are intended to figure out. Vivid, original settings and characters take the place of the usual formula and keep the reader engaged. In this case it is a coastal village full of unfriendly locals and shadowy “tearaways”—vagabond, delinquent youngsters of the sort so prevalent in the 1960s. The village thrived on smuggling for centuries and has a tradition of discouraging attention from the outside in order to protect its criminal activities.

There is a rather milky young couple involved, an American anthropologist and a female doctor who has unexpectedly inherited a house in the village. The American has been encouraged to visit the place by Allingham’s aging detective, Albert Campion, and we get to see a bit more of his sidekick Lugg than we have in the preceding couple of novels. But they, along with his retired or about-to-retire colleagues in the CID and Intelligence, are all rather exhausted and apathetic. I loved the setting but wondered where the story was going.

Her husband’s contribution to the book didn’t help matters. It’s clear he had a more conventional mind than his wife, with less of a sense of the macabre and more crotchets. Over the course of the book the young hooligans come to be treated the way the elderly tended to view the hippies in the 1960s—as irresponsible druggies, weaklings, and overgrown children. I feel Allingham would have found more possibilities in them.

The plot, too, starts to meander and is wrapped up in a Campion-explains-all scene that was a lazy and hole-riddled resolution. Campion for all his unconventional ways was always a rigidly ethical character, and it was disappointing to me to see him so blithely letting all sorts of criminal behavoir slide, as well as engaging in a bit of it himself. And an element of the story is introduced in that final reveal scene which was in no way hinted at throughout the book, something Allingham would never have allowed.

In all, it was a disappointing end to a wonderful run for one of my favorite mystery writers.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have discovered that there are about 3 types of Campion novels. Where Campion is dopey and ridiculous, where Campion is the name of the detective but bears little resemblance to the Campion in the other books, and finally the Campion who is an interesting person and oversees interesting plots. This is one of the latter ones, and I put it on the same quality level as "Tiger in the Smoke". I think I read "Tiger in the Smoke" early on, and then as such I was bewilderingly confused with the early Campion books where he's a ridiculous parody.

So skip the goofy Campion, and dive into the ones with a better fleshed out character undertaking an interesting bit of work.

[Wendi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am excessively fond of Allingham

There are some objective flaws in her work, but I like her approach, her tone, her vocabulary, her characters, and especially Campion. Campion's brand of airy persiflage is precisely what I want in my British nobility detectives. So she can do no wrong worth mentioning and I will read and reread her books til I can't read anymore, whenever I want a lovely dopamine hit from reading just the right sort of mystery.

This one is set well on past WW2 and into the cold war. Campion's son is mentioned only once and in passing, the rest of his immediate family not at all. Lugg is Lugg, and so still a very endearing reprobate.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The later Campion mysteries tend to leave me cold, but this one was an adventurous romp in the style of the early novels. I discovered that I purchased my copy back in 1993, and I regret that it took me this long to read it. Highly recommended!

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cargo of Eagles is the 19th book in the Albert Campion mystery series by Margery Allingham. In fact, it's more than just a mystery series as Albert Campion is a mysterious individual, with a mysterious past who seems to have worked for the British spy service during WWII and maintains connections with them.

In this story, the focus is on other people, an American historian, Morty Kelsey, who has been in Saltey, on the outskirts of London, located by a salt marsh. He comes to London to meet Campion to maybe get his assistance with a matter. A woman doctor, Dido, who he has taken a fancy to, has just surprisingly inherited a house in Saltey, the other residents object to. Dido has been receiving mysterious (yes, that word 'mysterious' again) threatening letter telling her not to move there. But this just makes her want to more. She won't back down.

'Mysterious' things are happening in Saltey. Campion has sent his butler / assistant Lugg there to keep an eye on things as well. Campion is investigating something but isn't providing much info. He's working with an old friend from the intelligence services and also a retired police superintendent and friend, Stanislaws Oates, because there was a history of smuggling in that area and it may have something to do with what's going on.

The solicitor who managed the will of the decedent is murdered and this brings in London cops who leave behind Sgt Throstle to investigate that aspect. Suffice it to say that there is a lot going on and I'm not doing it justice. The locals are very secretive. There are gangs of Mods and Rockers invading periodically and causing problems. And two old dangerous criminals who seem to be leaving calling cards.

It's an intriguing story and at times the tension is palpable and the action is quite exciting, especially the fights between locals and the 'tearaways', the motorcyclists. Through all of this Campion is a bit ghostlike. He wanders in, gathers info from Morty and Lugg and heads back to London. But he doesn't provide much info until everything is resolved. But at the same time, there are moments when he is surprisingly firm and intransigent, not at all like him.

Neat people, fascinating action-filled story that draws you in completely. The series is definitely worth reading. 3.5 stars

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spies, criminals, poison pen letters and drug smuggling lead to detective adventures on the English coast. I was excited to find a new-to-me Margery Allingham mystery, but Cargo of Eagles lacks her usual charm and humor—perhaps because the author died while writing the story, and the book was finished by someone else. My advice: read any of her other books first, and this one only if you are a completionist who likes to read the whole series.

[Michael Rumney · Rating 1 out of 5]

A bit of a disappointment. A book that meandered all over the place. At first I thought it was a crime novel which morphed into espionage and with hell's angels and mods thrown in for good measure.
Characters turned up from out of the blue and it was difficult to know who they were or their connection to a wafer thin story.
I think this was one book too many from the author.

[Eric Ritchie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps this isn't the best example of a Campion story (I've read five so far), all the same it's a thrilling novel with familiar characters. If you're a hardcore Campion fan perhaps you won't enjoy this one as much, for myself, a fan of thrillers, mysteries, and especially of the golden-age of British mystery novels, I enjoyed it thoroughly - and I recommend it heartily.

The setting is the 1960s and bears a marked resemblance to the setting of the recent ITV period series Endeavour. If you like that series in particular, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

[Colin Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This , the last of Margery Allingham's Campion novels starts off in a more modern type of language and flowed well. Towards the end, it became somewhat stilted in style and with a rather abrupt ending where bodies were disposed of and nothing much reported to the police who drift completely from the picture.

Basically, Campion is back in his secret service guise and using the police towards this end in searching for the cargo of a yacht that was hijacked at the close of WW2 while carrying items from a closed down secret service mission in eastern Europe. The hijacker had been found and imprisoned but the cargo never found, until now.

[Flex and Herds from Death of the Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here on Death of the Reader, it’s a rare stop on your Murder Mystery World Tour that gets a double-feature. Often it’s to show the stark contrast between two portrayals, sometimes over decades, and the chosen double for this year was Albert Campion. Coming in at 12th for our 2022 recommendations, Cargo of Eagles was the final Campion novel penned by the series’ creator, Margery Allingham, one of the oft-lauded four queens of Golden Age Crime. More spy-thriller than mystery, Campion’s novels snuck their way onto your Murder Mystery World Tour on account of the legend that the spytective was originally envisioned as a parody of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, and also because there are some fantastic novels in the Campion catalogue.

The question is, does Cargo of Eagles quite fit ‘fantastic’? Finished posthumously for Allingham by her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, Cargo of Eagles follows an aged-but-not-quite-old Campion to the coastal town of Saltey, traipsed in a long history of skulduggery. It’s actually a young American by the name of Mortimer Kelsey, in Campion’s employ who finds himself on the front lines unfolding the confoundments this once-piratical-haven has to offer. Their first point of contact, Hector Askew, is found dead with a dirge playing from a haunted radio in his hands, and so the cat and mouse game with an absent antagonist begins. Through the decades, Saltey has been home to notorious criminals, daring escapes and fierce rivalries. It’s unclear if those rivalries are boiling over, or the town’s reputation has brought in a new generation of nerdowells to confront Campion’s informal espionage agency.

The town is laden with blunt metaphors, centred around the local pub, ‘The Demon’, and Mossy, an old man at the establishment who will chew any patron’s ear off about the actual demon, or is it a ghost, he saw around in the town. Other patrons speak of seemingly simple deaths and disappearances in the town’s history that begin to draw the hunger of the press, pinching even harder on the nerves of generational powers in the town. Morty is almost conscripted into becoming the town’s historian as the various leads direct him to artefacts both proverbially and literally buried in the town’s past. Whilst the novel tackles history, the town tackles youth. A large background piece to the novel is the youth culture of the sixties, and it’s painfully apparent that its written with a curmudgeonly navel-gazing that does not fit the young leading duo whose eyes we peer through for most of the novel. It’s a fun gag when we’re visiting Stanislaus Oates and reminiscing on Campion’s own departed youth, now a father of a man his own age when he started the franchise. As good as it is with Oates, that also makes it clear the inner voice of the novel is a bit too homogenous, jaded relative to what it claims the young upstarts on the front lines are like.

Speaking of Oates, Allingham and Carter take us on a heartfelt tour of Campion’s many career long allies. Many theories have been posed over the years as to where the handover between the pair of authors happened, and you might spot a few odd shifts in the writing as you go, but regardless, it’s clear there was a yearning nostalgia as the couple worked on their last novel. Beyond nostalgia for Campion’s decades past, there’s also homages to Allingham and Carter’s relationship, like our lead woman being named ‘Dido’, in reference to Allingham’s production of ‘Dido and Aeneas’, for which Carter designed the sets not long after they met. Campion himself, is a curious case as he contends both with his age, and its constant clashes with his position as crime-fiction protagonist. Campion’s dalliances with dangerous situations are delightful as his wit and preparation sneak him through doors Morty remains blissfully unaware of. Cleverly, you often don’t get to see the entirety of Campion’s plans, until their results spring from the shadows, which pay off surprisingly well considering how close some cards are played to Allingham and Carters’ chests.

Cargo of Eagles isn’t quite as embroiled in the tension or momentum of some of the more famous - or youthful - Campion novels. The thematics & atmosphere don’t sing quite as strong, but the pacing still serves the strong beats of the novel incredibly well. You won't find the gargantuan spy-fiction characters or country-damning schemes, but the push-and-pull between a sculpted core cast and the crucial moments they inhabit compel the novel to an understated elegance. The seam between the authors is perhaps most obvious in that the ending is crowded by an unnecessary explanation of the how-dunnit, but given its spy-fiction heritage, you’ll probably not find it anywhere as painful as the mathematics-textbook of even some very well-regarded locked-room mysteries.

Cargo of Eagles comes in at 12th on our most-recommended list for 2022. It is an undeniably important part of the Campion canon. A heartfelt read reminiscing on both its protagonists’ storied careers, and its authors’ decades-long partnership. It’s not the most exciting thriller in the collection, or the most intricate mystery, but you’ll easily come away satisfied, especially if you are stopping by as part of a tour of Allingham’s broader catalogue. You definitely should not start with Cargo of Eagles - sorry Lachlan, by the way - but it also teeters on the scales of ‘must-readability’ if you are taking a slice of the best of the franchise, at the very least because of its contextual significance.

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

This just isn't one of the better Campion mysteries, I don't think. It seemed really oddly paced and plotted to me; I had a really hard time following what was going and what the mystery even was. The last couple of chapters got quite good, but by that time it was really too late to save the story. I recently learned that this is probably one of the Campion mysteries that was published posthumously, which may explain a lot.

[Georgene · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's been many years since I've read any of the Albert Campion mysteries. I recalled them as being better than this, the last of them. I would have given this one 3 stars except I kept falling asleep while reading it. It was not exactly gripping. Any novel of less than 230 pages that takes me 3 days to read is really not worth the time or effort.

[Booksnpieces · Rating 2 out of 5]

I not a fan of Margery Allingham and I have never warmed to Albert Campion or Lugg but ever hopeful I tried reading another book . Unfortunately this book has done nothing to change my opinion. I found it bitty and not in the least engaging in anyway.

[Trudy Pomerantz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like I should like this book; Margery Allingham was from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction and I love Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Georgette Heyer and like Ngaio Marsh; but I don't.

[LJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well here it is, the last Campion novel written by Margery Allingham, although it was actually finished by her husband.

Like the previous book in the series, we're leaning on the Campion is (not) a spy plot. (Unlike the pervious book, we have returned to normal genres, so that weird science fiction jaunt really was a blip.) Campion worked for Intelligence during the war but returned to civilian life afterwards, however he has in the past acted a lot like a spy anyway, being hired by someone important and anonymous to fiddle around with events to stop a bad guy getting some item or land or whatnot, and in this and the previous novel his old spy boss calls on him to help out. So he's not a spy, but he basically is a spy.

Anyway, as happens in all the Campion books that I don't like so much, Campion keeps dropping out of the story to let some boring headstrong love-mad young man take the lead. These characters are all the exact same (see The China Governess and Hide My Eyes for recent examples) and I don't know why I am expected to want to spend time with them rather than Campion who is much more interesting. In this case our surrogate lead is Morty, an American who knows Campion's son. No, we can't see Campion's son. The last three books all dealt with situations or characters who could have been Campion's son but weren't. I don't know why Allingham wouldn't write about him. If Campion is too old to be the hero then surely his son makes more sense than some rando.

Anyway as it turns out, Morty is just here to hide the fact that as often happens, Campion is working in the background investigating, calling on contacts and setting up traps and if he were in the forefront and we were allowed to see what he was doing then the story would be much shorter. But I KNOW Allingham COULD write stories where Campion was at the centre of the story because I have read them. My two favourite books in fact are the two that are entirely from his perspective (The Case Of The Late Pig and Traitor's Purse).

The mystery that needs resolving here is similar to the one in the previous book in that the resolution is that there is much less of a mystery here than you thought. An anti-climax if you will. Kind of a let down really, but hey, at least both Oates AND Lugg show up, so if you can ignore boring young Morty, it is almost like old times!

Anyway, I will go on to read the two novels that her husband wrote after this. I am hoping that maybe he actually wanted to write about Campion? You know, as the main character? We'll see.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Poison pen letters, a released smuggler, a murder, a motorcycle gang and a treasure in Allingham’s last Campion.

This is the last Campion story written by Margery Allingham. Actually, her husband, Philip Youngman Carter completed the book after her death. For whatever reason, I found it one of her better works.

Campion aged with his author. While in the background for much of the story, he functions as a kind of “director” for the whole. His interest centers on the Essex coastal village of Saltey, which seems to have as “salty” a reputation as its name. He sends his manservant Lugg ahead to embed in the village by buying a bungalow.

While Campion pursues behind the scenes investigations, he recruits a young historian, Mortimer (“Morty”) Kelsey to be his eyes on the ground. Ostensibly, he is researching Saltey’s colorful history as a hub for smuggling. In reality, he is taken with Saltey’s newest resident, Dido, a doctor who inherited a house from a patient. The residents do not welcome her with open arms. Instead, she received a number of poison pen letters. Then they find her agent, Hector Askew, murdered.

Meanwhile, rumors abound that a recently released convict, James Teague, released from prison and his accomplice, are back in the area to recover a hidden treasure. All this occurs amid the village’s “salty” history, and an invasion of a raucous motorcycle gang led by a hardbitten woman.

However, as readers, we wonder where is Teague? will they find Askew’s murderer? who is behind the letters? and is there a treasure? After finding several of the previous stories disappointing, this one represented a strong finish for Allingham, and for her hero Campion.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is my personal private superstition that if you're afraid something might happen, don't say it out loud, or it will. Never will I joke about waking up at 3 AM again.
Three and a half stars. This time the book is "accursed" because in the final chapters, after a sleepless night, suddenly the ebook reader it was on stopped working properly and I had to scrabble around and straighten that out.
Classic "smuggler's cove" story in which The Girl inherits an unexpected house in an estuary village where no one wants her or The Hero. The closed-mouthed villagers have been done to death in books and films from Jamaica Inn to Treasure Island; in this book few actual villagers are seen. Instead we have poison pen letters, of all things. We never find out what the title means until the final few pages. This was Allingham's last book and while a bit weak, at least Campion has a larger part than usual and Lugg is present and correct. Not a bad read on 3 hours' sleep.

[Rick Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story takes us back to The Beatles era, with "mods" terrorizing the community on motorbikes with their tight black outfits, blasting music on their "transistors". The pirate/smuggling backstory is right out of Jamaica Inn (Daphne du Maurier). The hidden treasure is indeed found, and in a clever hiding place. The disposition of the treasure is an interesting exercise, and this is the significance of the title. Mossy Ling is an enjoyable character, hanging around the bar and telling his story (he was the only one who saw The Demon) in exchange for drinks. The true story behind the legend comes out, and it is quite funny.

For additional reviews indexed by author, please visit The Mystillery Blog and try The Mystillery Reading Challenges!

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margery Allingham is known to this day as one of the early queens of crime writing. This novel, which was her last and was completed after her death by her husband, is still a good read. The action takes place in the 1960s and deals with a hunt for a load of government gold ("double eagles") thought to have been hidden after WWII in a very isolated English village full of very grumpy, and even dangerous, characters. Albert Campion, Allingham's major hero, is trying to recover the gold, although he seems to be the only one who knows what the "treasure" being hunted actually is. There are several murders and a couple of very bad guys who are suspected of having hidden the treasure. It's good clean fun and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I would recommend it for those who are fans of Christie, Marsh, and Allingham. It will not disappoint.

[Charlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last book Allingham wrote, completed by her husband, Youngman Carter, is complex and interesting. Some bits are dated by the townspeople's fear of gangs of motorcycle riding, drug using, free-loving mods and rockers, and the talk of pirates is not convincing. However, the tight community of Saltey, England, the tales of old about this seacoast town that is almost secluded from other places, and the underlying mystery that we learn about very late in the game all makes it a page turner. Another example of a book with too little Campion, but his contribution is always significant, and, as his enemies have learned, it is not wise to underestimate him.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This being the final book in the Campion series, I thought did round it off fittingly. At this time we have worked our way through Campion's career and some of his social life, bringing us up to the 60's with the mods and rockers of that time. The area in which it is set was known for it's smuggling, so we had that included together, with espionage with which Campion has been associated, and of course a murder. I was pleased that Lugg was included, even if it was just a small role.
I have really enjoyed this author's books, and working my way through them has really built the characters and the style of the writing.

[Deb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Margery Allingham didn't actually write this book herself - it was completed by her husband after her death - but that's not much of an excuse really. Apart from being terribly dated (written in the 1960s by someone who obviously wasn't familiar with "young people"), the plot is almost incomprehensible. I was probably handicapped slightly by only having read one Allingham book previously, and a long time ago, but there was not much about it that appealed to me. In fact, I can't think of anything good to say about it. At the end I wasn't even sure if anyone had been murdered, let alone by whom.

[Heatherinblack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange final book (written by Margery).

Where have Campion and Lugg been all this time. Tends to feel like the book is set in the 60s with references to Mods and Rockets. No wife references for Campion. Vague reference to his MUCH older than the last book. Mostly no Campion. He was managing behind, somewhat. I was not thrilled by Morty and Dido. Morty seemed to run with lusts every which way. I really like the female reporter. Her character was well developed in her conversation with Monty but virtually nothing happens with her after that. Campion and Lugg suddenly find what they are looking for.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange things are going on in Saltey. A woman dies and leaves her house to a stranger, a young woman who begins to get poison letters and is basically not liked by the village. Lugg has taken a cottage there and Mortimer has befriended the young woman. Campion is involved for other reasons. When they discover a young man dead in the house, their job gets harder. Are old ghosts back to hidden treasure? What's going on?

Fairly interesting once you get into it. A classic mystery. Campion is always a little mysterious as to what he's really doing, but the title holds a clue.

[Elena Hebson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, just could have been better. I didn't know until after I finished it that this book was finished by her husband after her death, and then it made sense to me why I hadn't quite liked this as much as other Campion mysteries.
The resolution in particular I felt to be not the strongest explanation, or at the very least not the most satisfying. Still, even if it had been finished by Allingham, I just don't think this book would have been my favorite. The vibe is weird, for lack of a better word, and not what I personally look for in mysteries.

[Karla Huebner]

This Campion novel jumps us forward some decades and I gather was the one that Allingham's husband finished after her death, although that doesn't really show, fortunately. Here we've got Campion hanging out in a strange "back door to London" village with a long history of piracy and smuggling. As tends to be the case in Allingham's tales, everything is complex, murky, allusive, and there are plenty of peculiar characters to keep the reader amused and confused.