Mr Campion's Christmas
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The Campions are snowed in at Christmas, but just when they think it can't get any colder, their holidays take an even chillier turn.
"A refreshingly surprise-packed entry in an always excellent series" Publishers Weekly Starred Review
1962, Norfolk. Boxing Day looks set to be a quiet affair for the Campions when they are snowed in at their remote farmhouse, Carterers - until a charabanc full of 'pilgrims' travelling from London to the Shrine of Our Lady in nearby Walsingham crashes into their imposing granite gateposts and the family unexpectedly find themselves playing host to the eccentric passengers.
But any lingering festive cheer is in short supply when a shocking discovery is made the following day, while a terrifying twist reveals that some of the guests are not who they seem. Which - if any - can they trust? Suddenly hostage to events, the Campions are drawn into a fiendish web of espionage as the Cold War comes chillingly close to home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ripley continues his impressive run of channeling Margery Allingham in his shrewd 12th whodunit featuring Allingham's Albert Campion (after Mr. Campion's Memory), which finds the aristocratic sleuth puzzling out a snowy closed-circle mystery. In 1962, Albert is celebrating Christmas at home in Norfolk with his wife and son when a blizzard strikes. The conditions lead the family to invite their housekeeper and her elderly father-in-law to wait out the weather with them. Then a bus from London crashes into the Campions' gates, leaving its driver and seven passengers—three American soldiers, a priest, a professor, a postmistress, and a historian—in need of shelter. As Albert and his family scramble to accommodate the guests, one of them turns up dead, with a broken neck. Albert instantly assumes that the killer must be under his roof, but Ripley cleverly switches gears after the investigation gets underway, steering the proceedings out of golden age territory and toward a suspenseful espionage plot. He keeps tensions high until the gratifying conclusion, and his characterizations—particularly of Albert—are spot-on. This is a refreshingly surprise-packed entry in an always excellent series.
