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Mystery Mile (Albert Campion Mystery, #2)

Margery Allingham

Start date: February 1, 2018

Finish date: February 28, 2018

Discussion: Group reads

Why we're reading this: Our February group read - the true start of the Campion series!
[close] Our February group read - the true start of the Campion series!

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What Members Thought

Feb 12, 2008 Nancy Oakes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-fiction-uk, crime-fiction, classic-mystery-fiction

Would I recommend it? Yes. Whether or not you've read the first one doesn't matter in this book -- from here on out, though, you'll want to make sure you read the series in order (from what I remember). Not a cozy, exactly, but if you like British mysteries, you'll like it. Campion is somewhat enigmatic, but here, unlike in the first mystery of the series, he's pretty much on his own. Still holding on to that silly exterior, his character is a bit more developed in this novel.

The story opens on ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Oct 14, 2011 Jan C rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library, mystery, england, 2011, between-the-wars

While reading this one. I found out that dear Albert was only a featured character in the first book. The Crime at Black Dudley. I enjoyed that one. As I also enjoyed this one.

Both have the same criminals - the Simister crowd.

I had it partially solved. Right guy but didn't know his position. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 06, 2017 Jenn Estepp rated it liked it

Shelves: sleuths-and-gumshoes, libraries-are-great, kindling

I liked this better than the first Campion, but I'm still not sure that Allingham is the Golden Age writer for me. Although I hear they build and improve on each other, so I won't give up just yet. Campion is an interesting character and their were definitely plot elements that I found really well done, but I also felt like I didn't know what was going on/who was being talked about half the time ... ...more

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Aug 29, 2013 Ruth rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery

Thoroughly enjoyable. My purchase of the game LitWit was worth it as it is what lead me to discover Allingham and her amusing creation, Albert Champion. Poirot with more kookiness -- A less suave Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief...... a pet raven, an colorful past, and "interesting" friends-- reading this was a bit like taking a scenic drive -- there was something around every corner to engage and entertain. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 01, 2020 P. rated it did not like it

DNF Campion is a tediously boring goober.

1 like · Like · see review

Feb 07, 2018 Robin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018

Returning home to London from the United States on a steamship, the vacuous-seeming Albert Campion saves Judge Crowdy Lobbett from death by electrocution from a poorly-wired magician’s cabinet. Judge Lobbett, as Campion learns from a fellow passenger, Alistair Ferguson Babar, has recently escaped death four times – accidents that killed individuals close to him. Lobbett is the judge attempting to take down the infamous Simister gang. The gang operates internationally, and no one has ever seen Si Returning home to London from the United States on a steamship, the vacuous-seeming Albert Campion saves Judge Crowdy Lobbett from death by electrocution from a poorly-wired magician’s cabinet. Judge Lobbett, as Campion learns from a fellow passenger, Alistair Ferguson Babar, has recently escaped death four times – accidents that killed individuals close to him. Lobbett is the judge attempting to take down the infamous Simister gang. The gang operates internationally, and no one has ever seen Simister, the leader of the gang, except for one man who was killed shortly afterward. In London, Campion is visited by Lobbett’s son, Malcolm, who enlists Campion’s help to keep his father alive. Thinking of his friends Giles and Biddy Paget and their secluded home on Mystery Mile, a tiny village surrounded by marshes, Campion convinces the Lobbett family to rent the Padget’s home for the next few weeks. However, after dinner on the very night the Lobbetts arrive, the Lobetts, Pagets, Campion and the village’s vicar are visited by a wandering palmist who seems to know more about them than he should. After the palmist leaves, the vicar excuses himself, returns to his home, and commits suicide. The next day, Judge Lobbett disappears from the center of a maze on the Paget’s property, and soon afterward, Biddy is kidnapped. Campion knows that it is the work of the Simister gang and to protect his friends and the Judge, he must stop Simister himself at any cost.

Mystery Mile is the second book in Margery Allingham’s Campion series, but is the first to feature Albert Campion as the main character. We know little of Campion as a character after the first book, as Allingham intended to have another character feature in her mystery series. Campion is a very intelligent and resourceful individual; however, he frequently plays the part of a very fatuous well-to-do Englishman, who, as a result, is underestimated by the villain in the book. I also think he is underestimated by readers, especially in the early books, before Allingham matures him as a man and a detective, and he loses his silliness in later books.

Although Allingham was considered one of the “Queens of Crime” during the Golden Age of Detection, Mystery Mile is not a typical whodunit of the period. It has some whodunit elements, as well as some spy elements and is also something of an adventure story. There is the obligatory death, but this is not a typical murder mystery. I realize there are many who don’t like Allingham as much as Christie or Sayers, but I find Campion’s silliness fun – there are so many serious detectives, and Campion can be serious, but he does have an irreverent side that I find very refreshing. I honestly did not catch on to the identity of the villain and there were one or two other “red herrings” that worked on me and contributed to my enjoyment. ...more

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May 16, 2011 Abbey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: vintage, favorites, reviewed, myst-set-andor-auth-uk, series, own, myst-fems-project

BOTTOM LINE: A terrific "thriller!", 1920s style, filled with sinister plots, evil thugs, and Nice Chaps Doing Right - still great fun, at a frantic pace, even after almost a century.

Albert Campion is a PI, in the same sense that Lord Peter Wimsey is - a gentleman who gets himself mixed up in crime and works assiduously to get himself and others out of it, all in the best taste, of course. But Albert is a bit more "hands on" than Peter, actually getting into physical scrapes and up to almost-ne BOTTOM LINE: A terrific "thriller!", 1920s style, filled with sinister plots, evil thugs, and Nice Chaps Doing Right - still great fun, at a frantic pace, even after almost a century.

Albert Campion is a PI, in the same sense that Lord Peter Wimsey is - a gentleman who gets himself mixed up in crime and works assiduously to get himself and others out of it, all in the best taste, of course. But Albert is a bit more "hands on" than Peter, actually getting into physical scrapes and up to almost-nefarious escapades himself - a sort of almost-risque (and rather younger) Peter, if you will. He's still a bit too much playing the fool here at times (Allingham tones this down progressively over the years, thankfully), it was nonetheless an extremely popular style of detecting at the time (~1930) in what was only her second Campion tale. But it's a great plot, at a wild pace, and although it's filled with stock characters it remains one of my favorites of Allingham's books.

New Englander - and retired judge - Mr. Lobbett has traveled to England on the trail of a criminal mastermind by the name of Simister. He's gotten his hands on a clue that may lead to the identity of this heretofore unknown criminal who is responsible for quite a lot of awful happenings in both the USA and Europe. Unfortunately, Simister's gang seem to also know this, for he keeps just barely not getting killed, and has been forced to go into hiding in a remote house in coastal, rural England, under the watchful eye of Albert Campion, Lobbett's son and daughter, and the impoverished owners of the grand house the Judge has rented - within an inbred and extremely quiet little village called Mystery Mile. But the Simister Gang have found him, and nefarious plots are on foot to find what the clue is to Simister's identity and destroy it, and the Judge too. But not if Albert, the Judge's children, and inheritors of The Manor House Giles and Biddy have anything to say about it, not to mention the peculiar - but trustworthy, well almost... - locals as well.

A familiar plot nicely woven with lovely touches of humor and a very smooth progression throughout the various paces of the story, is mixed with terrific characterizations and a great finale, and has kept this old story fresh and fun. Even though you'll undoubtedly guess the identity of the Mastermind fairly easily there are still tricky bits that continue to amuse and captivate. Made into a rousing tv movie starring Peter Davison in the early 1980s, I heartily recommend any of the films in that wonderful series, but especially Mystery Mile - the thrilling conclusion is truly, gloriously, still actually thrilling, in both filmed, and written, versions. ...more

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Jun 06, 2018 Jan C rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, gr-group-read, 2018

Despite having recently read this one, I still enjoyed this reading. Of course, I did already know whatever was going to happen. But I still liked it.

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