Product Description

Campion's glorious summer in Pontisbright is blighted by death. Amidst the preparations for Minnie and Tonker Cassand's fabulous summer party, a murder is discovered and it falls to Campion to unravel the intricate web of motive, suspicion and deduction with all his imagination and skill.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #121873 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 244 pages

Review
'Philip Franks sounds, marvellously, as if he's reading in a dinner-jacket ... Fabulous' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'Margery Allingham deserves to be rediscovered' - P.D. James

Synopsis
Campion's glorious summer in Pontisbright is blighted by death. Amidst the preparations for Minnie and Tonker Cassand's fabulous summer party, a murder is discovered and it falls to Campion to unravel the intricate web of motive, suspicion and deduction with all his imagination and skill.

From the Publisher
'Margery Allingham deserves to be rediscovered' - P.D. James

Customer Reviews

Sublime
This is Allingham at her best. The characters that she has developed through her books are relaxed and well drawn, and it is good to see Campion and Amanda back in the place they first met. The story is intriguing and the secondary characters are beautifully quirky.

Allingham never contented herself with straight and dull crime books like some of her contemporaries whose style never developed. Instead she approached the crime story from many directions during her career. Some were whodunnits, some were psychological thrillers, others were acute observations of both rural and urban life. What is more she is a highly literate writer whose novels transcend the genre.

Dull, contorted and confusing
This was one of those odd books in which every word is written in English, but when they are all put together, make very little sense at all. Some of the writing is good but it was difficult to work out who anyone was or what their relationships were with the other characters - despite the cast list at the beginning of the book. The characters were unreal, the scene and the actual murder were very good and well written. I am puzzled by this book because I am a big fan of detective fiction and have read a lot, but this was like trying to read a book in a foreign language that you don't know well enough ...
If you have read her other books and are 'tuned in' to her style, you may well enjoy this book immensely. If you are a newcomer, I would be interested to see if anyone else feels the same as me.

The Beckoning Lady
One of the worst Campion novels, to date. Peopled exclusively by characters who I assume are intended to be funny and amusing, but are irritating in the extreme. A disappointing read that I struggled to finish.