Mr Campion's Farewell : The Return of Albert Campion Completed by Mike Ripley

The Golden Age of British Detective Fiction The idyllic English village of Lindsay Carfax isn’t run by the parish council, the rating authority, the sanitary inspector nor the local cops as you might suppose. The real bosses are the Carders – something to do with wool, four hundred years back. They wound stuff on cards, I suppose. But these boys are very fly customers – they’re right on the ball. Boiled down, it comes to this; they’re a syndicate who run this place – which makes a packet – with their own rules. One way and another they probably own most of it.” Thus ruminated Superintendent Charles Luke to Albert Campion who was contemplating visiting his wayward artistic niece in Carfax. And when a missing schoolteacher reappeared after nine days, and Campion’s car was “inadvertently” damaged, not to mention Campion himself, then all the signs were that not all was what it seemed. Campion himself plays the central role in this quintessentially British mystery, but there are appearances too from all of Margery Allingham’s regular characters, from Luke to Campion’s former manservant Lugg, to his wife Lady Amanda Fitton and others. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the observation keen, and the climax is thrilling and eerily atmospheric. The Golden Age of British Detective Fiction The idyllic English village of Lindsay Carfax isn't run by the parish council, the rating authority, the sanitary inspector nor the local cops as you might suppose. The real bosses are the Carders - something to do with wool, four hundred years back. They wound stuff on cards, I suppose. But these boys are very fly customers - they're right on the ball. Boiled down, it comes to this; they're a syndicate who run this place - which makes a packet - with their own rules. One way and another they probably own most of it." Thus ruminated Superintendent Charles Luke to Albert Campion who was contemplating visiting his wayward artistic niece in Carfax. And when a missing schoolteacher reappeared after nine days, and Campion's car was "inadvertently" damaged, not to mention Campion himself, then all the signs were that not all was what it seemed. Campion himself plays the central role in this quintessentially British mystery, but there are appearances too from all of Margery Allingham's regular characters, from Luke to Campion's former manservant Lugg, to his wife Lady Amanda Fitton and others. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the observation keen, and the climax is thrilling and eerily atmospheric When her husband and two daughters disappear, housewife Clare Taylor discovers that her ordinary domestic life has been built on a lie.About to turn forty, her youthful dreams of becoming an actress abandoned, there's no doubt in her mind that suburban wife and mother-of-two Clare Taylor has settled. A wild week in Chicago may have shaken things up a bit, but as she turns her key in her Madison, Wisconsin home on the eve of Hallowe'en, she knows that what happened with her ex was nothing more than a distraction, that this is where her life is. Except it's all gone. The furniture gone, the house stripped, her husband Danny, her daughters, all gone; no message; no note, nothing. Outside in the dark, searching for a sign, she steps in one: the eviscerated body of the family dog. By dawn next morning, her supposedly mortgage-free home has been foreclosed against, one of Danny's childhood friends lies dead in her backyard, and Clare is caught up in a nightmare that began with her husband on Hallowe'en night, 1976. A nightmare that reaches its terrifying climax thirty-five years later. Clare Taylor arrives home in Madison, Wisconsin after a wild week in Chicago to discover that the house has been stripped bare and there's no sign of her husband and two daughters. By dawn next morning her house has been foreclosed against, there's a dead body in her backyard, and Clare discovers that her ordinary domestic life has been built on a lie-- a lie that began over thirty years ago, on Hallowe'en night, 1976 Clare Taylor arrives home after a wild week in Chicago to discover that the house has been stripped bare and there's no sign of her husband and two daughters. By dawn next morning, her house has been foreclosed against, there's a dead body in her backyard, and Clare is caught up in a nightmare that began with her husband on Hallowe'en night, 1976. Albert Campion is contemplating visiting his wayward artistic niece in Carfax. And when a missing schoolteacher reappears after nine days, and Campion's car is "inadvertently" damaged, not to mention Campion himself, then the signs are that not all is what it seems. Mr. Campion heads to Carfax to visit his wayward niece, but when a missing teacher reappears after nine days and Campion's car is "inadvertently" damaged it is clear that something is not right in the English village.