Mr Campion's War
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5.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“Pop has never talked about what he did in the war … Whatever he did, it was pretty secret stuff”: the intriguing new Albert Campion mystery.
Campion's young and old, extended family members and loyal friends are gathered at the Dorchester Hotel to celebrate Albert Campion’s seventieth birthday – along with some intriguing, unrecognizable guests. Who exactly are the mysterious, aristocratic, scar-faced German, Freiherr Robert von Ringer, and the elegantly chic Madame Thibus – and what is their connection to Mr Campion?
Campion has decided the time has come to enthral his guests with his account of his wartime experiences in Vichy France more than twenty-five years before, but in doing so he unveils a series of extraordinary events. Why here, and why now? Not least as Campion’s shocking revelations have repercussions which reverberate to the present day, putting one of his guests in deadly danger . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ripley has never been better at demonstrating his ability to plausibly extrapolate from Margery Allingham's Campion novels than in his fourth outing for her gentleman sleuth (after 2017's Mr. Campion's Abdication). On May 20, 1970, a black-tie dinner is held at the Dorchester hotel in London, to celebrate Albert Campion's 70th birthday. The guests include L.C. Corkran, a retired British intelligence officer, and German Robert von Ringer, a contemporary of Campion's at Cambridge University, intriguingly described as someone who, during WWII, tried to kill the birthday boy at least twice. Flash back to 1942 and a Nazi plot to manipulate Britain's currency, as well as a conspiracy involving "corrupt Vichy politicians making personal profits out of government supply contracts, and the well-established Marseilles underworld." The espionage plot line predominates, but there's an act of violence at the Dorchester whose perpetrator must be detected. Ripley matches his faithful characterizations with witty prose (a major has a "rather plummy voice, rather like a northern rep actor trying to do Shakespeare at short notice"). Allingham aficionados will be enthralled.
