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    Coroner's Pidgin
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    Coroner's Pidgin
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    Coroner's Pidgin
    Ebook309 pages5 hours

    Coroner's Pidgin

    By Margery Allingham

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Allingham has that rare gift in a novelist, the creation of characters so rich and so real that they stay with the reader forever.” —Sara Paretsky
     
    World War II is limping to a close and private detective Albert Campion has just returned from years abroad on a secret mission. Relaxing in his bath before rushing back to the country, and to the arms of his wife, Amanda, Campion is disturbed when his servant, Lugg, and a lady of unmistakably aristocratic bearing appear in his flat carrying the corpse of a woman.
     
    The reluctant Campion is forced to put his powers of detection to work as he is drawn deeper into the case, and into the eccentric Caradocs household, dealing with murder, treason, grand larceny, and the mysterious disappearance of some very valuable art. 
     
    “Margery Allingham deserves to be rediscovered.” —P.D. James
     
    “Margery Allingham was one of the greatest mid-20th-century practitioners of the detective novel.” —Alexander McCall Smith
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateOct 1, 2015
    ISBN9781504048705
    Unavailable
    Coroner's Pidgin
    Author

    Margery Allingham

    Margery Louise Allingham is ranked among the most distinguished and beloved detective fiction writers of the Golden Age alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Allingham is J.K. Rowling's favourite Golden Age author and Agatha Christie said of Allingham that out of all the detective stories she remembers, Margery Allingham 'stands out like a shining light'. She was born in Ealing, London in 1904 to a very literary family; her parents were both writers, and her aunt ran a magazine, so it was natural that Margery too would begin writing at an early age. She wrote steadily through her school days, first in Colchester and later as a boarder at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, where she wrote, produced, and performed in a costume play. After her return to London in 1920 she enrolled at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where she studied drama and speech training in a successful attempt to overcome a childhood stammer. There she met Phillip Youngman Carter, who would become her husband and collaborator, designing the jackets for many of her future books. The Allingham family retained a house on Mersea Island, a few miles from Layer Breton, and it was here that Margery found the material for her first novel, the adventure story Blackkerchief Dick (1923), which was published when she was just nineteen. She went on to pen multiple novels, some of which dealt with occult themes and some with mystery, as well as writing plays and stories – her first detective story, The White Cottage Mystery, was serialized in the Daily Express in 1927. Allingham died at the age of 62, and her final novel, A Cargo of Eagles, was finished by her husband at her request and published posthumously in 1968.

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    Reviews for Coroner's Pidgin

    3.5/5

    134 ratings8 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      If you're looking for one or two Campion books to read, as opposed to all of them, this is a good choice.
    • 4/5
      Excellent detective novel set in 1945 wartime London. Some of the characters are rather flightl and overwrought, which gets a bit tiresome but I think that's how some people really were. Issues of class and expectations complicate the case while all Campion wants is to be left alone to catch his train out of London to enjoy his first home leave in a long while.
    • 4/5
      I read this and a lot of other Allngham when young. I like the short stories best, but this is all right.
    • 5/5
      I'm not sure why this entry in Allingham's Campion series isn't a little bit better known. After almost ten years and a couple of novels that try to pull the series in new directions - sometimes feeling as if Campion himself is only included as a necessary marketing measure - Allingham manages to fuse her darker, wartime sensibility with both a plot and a set of characters who are more recognizably of a classic caliber. In fact, one might even be tempted to accuse Allingham of stepping backward if it didn't work so well: Albert Campion is distinctly Albert Campion, but older, more hesitant, and with less of a spring in his step; he and Chief Inspector Oates are growing old together and a little more tired of the "game" they play as talented amateur and established professional. It's probably unforgivable that Lugg appears basically unchanged, there mostly to provide light entertainment, but nobody really minds. Campion's wife, Amanda, is kept at bay until the final page - and that's intentional. This is a book about the old order going grey. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last time we see a "traditional" Campion. It's obvious that Allingham sees the war as a turning point, and the time of Bright Young Things has now passed. Campion spends the entire novel trying to abandon the responsibility thrust upon him and get home on his leave, but it becomes clear by the end that (athough he does get back to Amanda) there's no escape. Something has changed, and there's no turning back.
    • 5/5
      Campion gets a brief leave during WWII and comes home to find a dead man in his flat. His first impulse is to go off and leave him there, as he really wants to get to his country home and see his wife. But someone else turns up and he realizes he won't get any peace until he solves the whole thing. Lugg and his pig are one of my favorite parts in this whole series.
    • 4/5
      In this latest installment of the adventures of Mr. Albert Campion, we find our hero as he is returning from three years of work for the British crown. His plan is to arrive in London, take a hot bath at his Bottle Street flat and catch a train home to the lovely Amanda. While soaking in the tub, however, he is interrupted by voices in his flat; he goes out to check and there is the faithful Lugg and a couple of other people hauling in the body of a dead woman. Needless to say Campion misses his train, and the police investigation leads him into the world of stolen art.Not as up to par as some of the previous books of the series, but still a very decent read and Campion fans will enjoy it. If you're planning to try this series, do start with book #1 or you will definitely be lost.
    • 3/5
      Set in war-time London, Albert Campion gets some well-deserved (so we're led to believe) home leave, only to be interrupted by the fact that someone is bringing a body into his apartment. I didn't find this easy to follow, and it was even more absurd when you got into the issue of stolen art and bright young things. Give this a pass.
    • 4/5
      This seems to be the Year of Allingham for me. Once I got started, after two or three failed attempts, I found that I quite like her spiky sense of humor and her (mostly) lack of romance.Here find Campion on his first home leave since WW 2 called him to service. As he’s taking a relaxing bath he hears voices and footsteps in his empty apartment. He soon discovers that Lugg and a couple of women have put a dead woman’s body in his bed.Naturally he is disconcerted.The plot has almost too many threads, but they all untangle at the end. It’s a very clever, well-told tale. Highly recommended.