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Mystery Mile (1930)
This second Albert Campion outting has been called immature by some commentators, but such harshness seems unjust. Mystery Mile is a clever tale, straightforward in its construction but still pleasantly convoluted. Mystery Mile was adapted in the second series of the 'Campion' for the BBC. See the link at left for more information. The map at right comes from the Margery Allingham Omnibus, in which Mystery Mile in bound with the two other earliest Campion novels.
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The
story, which concerns the persecution of an American judge, Crowdy
Lobbett, is one of intrigue, if rather simple in its solution.
The book is more memorable for its characters, Campion's friend
Giles and his sister Biddy, the Canon, the young Americans Marlowe
Lobbett and his sister, Isopel; Swithin Cush, the local man of
cloth, the aristocratic conjurer Datchett, the clownish Alistair
Ferguson Babar, and the shifty former employee of London Telephone
and Telegraph, Thomas Knapp. The resolution of the story, including
the identification of the international criminal known only as
Simister, is certainly clever, although once one knows what the
clue is, it becomes easier to guess who the criminal mastermind
is among a cast of variously-coloured herrings.
