A review by saroz162
Traitor's Purse by Margery Allingham

3.0

...And Allingham changes style again. Three years after her last Campion adventure, she's completely given up the ghost of the upper-class murder mystery that informed most of the 1930s; now, she's devoted herself completely to the World War II spy thriller. This isn't the light, Golden Age romp we got ten years earlier with Mystery Mile at all. This is serious business, made all the more urgent by starting in media res. Albert Campion wakes up in hospital with a head injury and amnesia, and from there on, the action never really lets up. Allingham uses that to her benefit, especially in the final third of the book, where there is so much exposition - and, frankly, Campion leaps to so many deductions - that you really have to be moving at speed to accept it. Is it entertaining? Well, yes, it's practically a Hitchcock film (think Foreign Correspondent or Sabotage), and it's immensely readable. Does it make sense? Well, that's debatable. It doesn't feel much like anything that came before, and if it weren't for the cast of secondary characters - Oates, Amanda, and most especially a fun little entrance by Lugg - you might wonder if the book was originally written for Campion at all. Still, full credit to Allingham for trying something new. It will be interesting to see if she continues in this darker, more cynical vein from here on out, and whether or not Campion will regain any of his former personality.