More Work for the Undertaker - SPOILER Thread

[Susan]

Welcome to our July/August 2020 buddy read for the thirteenth, Albert Campion read.

The story takes place in Apron St., 'a strange decayed sort of neighbourhood', Dickensian London-at once entertaining and disquieting. Due to Allingham's unique gift for making place as vivid as character, the atmosphere is one of frozen in time, unchanged since the Victorian era.

Campion enters into a highly eccentric household where all is not what it seems and two suspicious deaths remain unsolved. London is described as a series of villages in which the Palinodes act as squires. The characters are, as usual, quite wonderful, and the villains are true 'Margery Allingham evil.' Nobody does this quite like her.

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

[Jill]

I loved this book. The setting, although being after the war, did have a very Victorian feel to it. Even though I missed Lugg being in the fore I still thought Charlie Luke made up for it. His description, mentioned more than once, having the look more of a gangster than policeman. I did think the plot was quite complex, more so in this book than has been in some others. I also thought the unmasking at the end was well explained.

[Judy]

Good to hear you enjoyed it so much, Jill.

I also liked Charlie Luke but actually thought Lugg played quite a key role in this - it was interesting to see him with family and being so sad about his sister.

At the start, I found it unbelievable that Campion would ever consider going off to be Governor of an island, messing up his own detective activities and Amanda's work and leaving the faithful Lugg behind! Did the "friends" who suggested this actually know him?!

[Judy]

What did anyone think of the end of this, and the revelation of what "going up Apron Street" meant? I probably got slightly lost in the plot, as I tend to do with Campion books, but I found it very atmospheric.

[Abigail]

Just finished--took me forever as this has not been much of a reading week for me. I enjoyed it though not as much as the previous. The Palinodes were an interesting bunch though not as charming to a modern palate as they must have seemed at the time the book was written. I liked Charlie Luke a lot, with his boundless energy imperfectly tamped down. Campion seemed a bit slow (as Amanda showed him in her postscript--the bank manager did indeed stand out a mile). I was suspicious of him (because he knew more about the shares than anyone else) even before Glossop turned up with his loose talk of (presumably) uranium mines. Jas and Rowley Boy didn't interest me so much, though their side business was entertaining enough.

I felt the structure suffered a bit from its "two threads" aspect--really, the "going up Apron Street" business had almost nothing to do with the killing of Ruth Palinode and just having the perp try to escape that way was not enough to weave them together.

[Judy]

Great thoughts there, Abigail. Must say I hadn't clocked the bank manager at all - I was doubtless being slow, but I think you were also being a good detective and giving Campion and Amanda a run for their money!

I also think you are right about the Apron Street business not having much to do with Ruth's murder - I hadn't thought about this as I was getting myself a bit confused. I did enjoy the twist of what the coffin contained, though.

[Abigail]

Yes, that was a clever (though not infallible, as we learned) way for malefactors to escape the long arm of the law!

[Pamela]

I finished this last night and enjoyed it a lot. I also felt that the Palinode family weren't as delightful as they were supposed to be, but I liked Renee and the connection between her and the Palinodes did surprise me.

I loved the dodgy undertaker and Lugg, and I actually thought the two strands worked OK - the murder had Luke and Campion looking for and discarding connections with the family (like Congreve and the loose lipped Captain).