Sweet Danger

Amanda Fitton is one of the most memorable women characters. I highly recommend all the Campion novels where she appears, right down to Tiger in T=the Smoke

This is my first Margery Allignham book. I purchased it because I have seen the Albert Campion series on Netflix. Orignally written in 1933 the dialogue reflects the times. The characters are true to aristocratic mores of the 30's. The plot is well constructed and the book moves along quickly.

Along with Traitor's Purse: Albert Campion #11 this is my favorite Campion so far. It's a puzzler though not a murder mystery with Campion acting more like a spy than a policeman. There's also considerable suspense and some thriller moments towards the end. But the best IMHO is Campion's initial meeting with Amanda Fitton whose just turning 18 years old. She will reappear in a number of the later volumes and IMHO adds a great deal to the fun. Also, Guffy will also reappear with Mary later on. In addition, there is a lot of humor in this particular novel. p. 38: Augustus (Guffy) Randall--"I see myself as a sort of Watson with a club." [who meets Mary Fitton for the first time herein] p. 39: Lugg, lost while driving in the countryside--"While we see England first." [during a very funny scene[ p. 40: Lugg, who seemed to have developed a beer-divining gift. p. 202: Campion--"I was going to take you [Amanda] into partnership as soon as you were over school age." [which she references at the end of the book] p. 262: Lugg, lugubrious and... Through much of the book, Campion calls himself "The Hereditary Paladin of Averna with Guffy as his Grand Vizier. The book is basically a mysterious and dangerous treasure hunt with Wodehouse-like humor. This work is included in Allingham Omnibus #2. 1965's Mr Champion's Lady The Second Allingham Omnibus , sometimes referred to as Omnibus #2--each novel includes Amanda Fitton thus the title. --Preface with description of the development of Amanda Fitton as a love interest --Campion #5=Sweet Danger or Fear Sign or Kingdom of Death (1933) --Campion #10= The Fashion in Shrouds: Albert Campion Mystery #10 (1938) --Campion #11 = Traitor's Purse: Albert Campion #11 or The Sabotage Murder Mystery (1941) --Word in Season: Story for Christmas [a short story] If you're not used to reading authors from the Golden Age of British Mysteries (e.g. Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, etc.), it might take you a bit of time to adjust to the cozier and more descriptive style than the more recent (and more violent) American mysteries--especially those that could be classified as Thrillers. However, you might like The Tiger in the Smoke: Albert Campion #14 and Tether's End: also titled, "Hide My Eyes" = Hide My Eyes which are, perhaps, more thriller than mystery. American authors with less description but of a more armchair or highly deductive (vs. lots of action) nature include Rex Stout, John Dickson Carr, and Ellery Queen. If, however, you can enjoy more literary mysteries, I'd strongly recommend Ngaio Marsh.

A little silly at times but also relevant. How do you get a long lost property back into the right hands? A few disguises help. The 1930s mystery countryside caper introduces Champion to his future wife.

This book, although most disconcerting at times, brings mystery and romance together in the most unusual of ways, Never quite indulging the plot or the storyline you get carried along hoping for clarification.

We are still dealing with a rather incredible international Napoleon of crime, but the characters are developed, even if some of the premises of the plot are far-fetched, at least, based on those premises, nothing that follows, however surprising, is unlikely.

No idea what other reviewers were complaining about. Formal writing? Nonsense. The book is wonderfully written. Very easy reading, highly entertaining and elegantly presented. As a period piece, I can't find anything I would fault. Well, libraries on demonology were probably not that common, even in the Suffolk countryside, but certainly there was an avid interest in collecting arcane lore (actual or spun from moonbeams and strong wine) during the 1800s. I imagine Margery Allingham was thinking along those lines. It's a very minor part of the tale, an aside in a plot device for tying up loose ends, so I don't consider it a spoiler. As a detective story, there is an obvious parallel Arthur Conan Doyle story, though not nearly as sophisticated as this. Plenty of older stories yet exist of riddles hiding treasures. This is in no way a rehash of well-trodden ground, though. This story is original and ingenious. It has become an over-used plot device in more recent times, but you can't fault an author for the future use of a story idea. Characterizations - the characters are all vividly described, never veering off-character. The only issue I have is that the characters of Campion and Amanda are the only ones of depth. The others exist to prod the story forward. But, when you examine most novels, that is true. Very few stories have complex characterization outside the main one or two people as it is too hard to follow otherwise. Colour and texture, rather than detail, for everything around the main subject.

Whoever called Margery Allingham "one of the Four Queens of Crime" didn't know what they were talking about. (I have my doubts about Ngaio Marsh, too. To my mind, there were three queens, Agatha Christie for her plots, Dorothy L. Sayers for her beautifully realized characters, and Ellis Peters, author of the Felse and Brother Cadfael mysteries, for her style and knowledge of human nature.) I bought this book because it was rated the best of the Campion mysteries. Allingham has a nice, chatty style, but her plots are ridiculously unbelievable, and her characters—except, perhaps, Lugg—seem flat. This book starts out like Three Men In A Boat, with Campion and his friends treating an international life-or-death mystery as a lark. Death threats, medieval fear signs, corpses, abductions, and the odd murder, don't seem to bother them. Campion does not grow and change, as (for example) Peter Wimsey does over the course of a story. He would never wonder if his work has caused pain to someone who didn't deserve it. His expression is constantly described as stupid or silly (Wimsey, early on, affects a kind of upperclass brainlessness); he proceeds with the self-assurance of a child walking into a lion's den. By the end of the book, Campion should have been killed three times over. For others impatient with Allingham, may I recommend any of the Lord Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy L. Sayers, or the Brother Cadfael or Felse mysteries by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter's pen name).