The Crime at Black Dudley

The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham

I'm ashamed to say that I have never read Margery Allingham before being offered the chance by NetGalley. Like my father, I seem to have a preference for British mysteries; and like my father, as he aged, I prefer the older titles with less detailed violence, sex, and language.

OPENING LINE: "The view from the narrow window was dreary and inexpressively lonely." This sets the atmosphere perfectly for what is to follow.

A weekend party at a rural estate is ruined when the host's uncle is murdered during a party game. The uncle had criminal connections and something he had that they want is missing. Who took it? The bad guys refuse to let anyone leave until that item is returned.

There are a lot of interesting characters to suspect among the guests, servants, and gang members. The plot has been described as haphazard but there's no problem following the story. The location allows for secret panels and passageways, which are great fun. This is certainly a classic mystery.

Apparently Allingham expected Dr. George Abbershaw would be her sleuth in this first book in the series, but it was the unusual and mysterious young man called Albert Campion, who captured readers and led to his promotion as hero of the series.

According to Mike Ripley "11 of her classic novels [will be} reissued this year and a further nine in 2016."

Bottom Line: If you love Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, you MUST READ Margery Allingham. These three are often referred to as the three queens of British Golden Age detective fiction.

Title: The Crime at Black Dudley Author: Margery Allingham Series: Albert Campion (Book #1)
Genre: Classic British Mystery Publisher: Bloomsbury Published: May 6, 2015 (Ebook)
ISBN-13: 9781448214211

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Source: NetGalley

Disclaimer: An advanced copy of The Crime at Black Dudley was provided to me by Bloomsbury/Net Galley for review purposes.

Margery Louise Allingham was an English writer of detective fiction, best remembered for her "golden age" stories featuring gentleman sleuth Albert Campion. (Wikipedia)

It is over fifty years since I first read this book--and it was already thirty years old. It has the merits and the faults of Golden Age crime fiction: foreign criminals, eccentric characters, snobbery and silliness--and, of course, a love story in the middle. What remains striking about this debut is the late appearance of the series detective (an aristocratic amateur), so that the main character turns out to be the principal interest, but not a continuing one. It also has satisfactory untidiness, so not everything is sewn up at the end, and the final pages only hint at the return of the foppish, nearsighted interloper. The novel demonstrates why critics have caricatured this interwar entertainment, but also rebuts the accusation that Allingham wrote 'cosies'. The novel represents a world that had disappeared with the great war, but which continued to fear Germans and other aliens, men too clever by half. Black Dudley belongs to a world without 24 hour news feeds. Take one at bedtime; caution, may be addictive.

Nothing like a good old book that is tried and true.

Originally published in 1929, this is a delightful Agatha Christie type mystery. A group of people gather at an old country house, the lights go off, a dagger goes missing and the elderly man in residence dies, ostensibly of a heart attack. The surviving members of the house party find that the gasoline has been siphoned from their automobiles, leaving them all stranded in a remote location with a killer on the prowl

Poor Albert Campion gets no respect — nor does his author, Margery Allingham.

Ninety years after Hercule Poirot first exercised his little grey cells in The Mysterious Affair at Styles and Lord Peter Wimsey first pranced through in Whose Body?, these redoubtable detectives and their brilliant authors are still household names. But Albert Campion? Like Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn, Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs. Bradley, or Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver — all of whom were quite popular in their day but have, sadly, fallen into obscurity — Campion has been cheated of the lasting fame that is his due.

But perhaps Bloomsbury Reader’s new edition of Campion’s first case, The Crime at Black Dudley, first published in 1929, can remedy the situation.

Like television’s Colombo or Lord Peter Wimsey, the fair-haired, bespectacled Albert Campion at first glance appears to be a bit of fool. Do not be taken in! Wise-cracking and with a high-pitched voice, Campion is crazy like a fox; unlike the moralistic Lord Peter, he doesn’t mind playing both on the side of the law and on the other. Campion’s in attendance at a house party at Black Dudley when the host, Colonel Gordon Coombe, a wheelchair-bound man who wears a plate on his face to cover hideous scars from the war, dies. Although his personal physician claims the death due to heart trouble, two other guests, pathologist Dr. George Abbershaw and newly minted doctor, Michael Prenderby, soon work out that Coombe was murdered. They begin trying to ferret out what secrets lie at Black Dudley, but it is Campion, of course, who truly shines when the crooks emerge.

The Crime at Black Dudley contains a good deal more suspense and more twists that you’d ever expect in a British cozy released in 1929. Although more than 85 years old, the novel remains as much of a five-star read as ever, and I read it in just a few sittings. Priced at a mere $1.99 in the Kindle format, readers owe it to themselves to get a taste of Allingham’s delightfully quirky series with The Crime at Black Dudley.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I received this ebook from NetGalley and Bloomsbury Reader in return for an honest review.

As much as I admire Margery Allingham's work, I must say I was surprised to find I had never read this book which is the first to feature Albert Campion. It was almost as if I could sense Allingham working out the boundaries she wanted to set for Albert. I'm very glad that she expanded those boundaries considerably in later books because this character stays a little too much in the background throughout this entire piece.

The classic setting of a weekend at a remote country estate is the centerpiece for the vast majority of the action here with the necessary collection of brilliant young people who simply show up on the doorstep and expect to be accommodated and entertained. It turns out that nobody really knows anybody else all that well so when a murder is discovered each character stands a pretty good chance of being `it'. All really good country house mysteries must feature a great location and Black Dudley satisfies that requirement completely. Not only does everybody have to figure out who they can really trust, but they also have to decide if these criminal types, who seem to have taken over the house, are actually who and what they say they are.

Once again a rousing good time provided by Mrs. Allingham. Once again I choose to overlook the plot holes which I don't allow modern authors. I have very high double standards.

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley.

A house party at a isolated location, a gang of thieves ,a murder and a family legend. This was a mystery with many twists and turns with some funny moments. This was the first book Albert Campion appears, it is a well written story line and has good characters. I plan to read as many books of Albert Campion as possible.
***I received this book in return for and honest review****

I received this from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. I have not read any of the Campion books before and was interested to find (from Wikipedia) that Allingham originally intended Dr. George Abbershaw, a pathologist who was occasionally called in by Scotland Yard as a consultant, to be the hero of this book and any future mysteries. However, Campion’s character seemed to be more memorable, and the publishers encouraged her to use him as her focus.

The story was layered. A house party meets in the remote manor house of Black Dudley, owned by young Wyatt Petrie. His uncle by marriage, Colonel Coombe, was a sickly recluse who encouraged Wyatt to have young friends down to liven up the atmosphere. At this particular party, the guests were varied, and some were downright shady.

Of course, there was a story about the family dagger, including a ritual involving the dagger being passed around from hand to hand in the dark. The guests thought this would be great fun, so they dispersed into darkened corridors, the servants were dismissed, and the ritual began.

As expected, nothing good comes from this, and the Colonel has taken to his bed. He is later pronounced dead from a heart attack. Dr. Whitby is uncomfortable signing the death certificate to allow for a rapid cremation. Dr. Abbershaw does sign, but is able to get a glance at the body and realizes that the Colonel has been murdered.

The imposing, stone-faced guest named Benjamin Dawlish, takes the other guests captive, aided by Gideon, who is also an associate of the deceased Colonel. It seems Dawlish had come with the express intention of picking up something valuable, and he was not allowing anyone to leave until he retrieved the missing item.

The story unfolds as the cast of characters try to figure out who Dawlish is, what he wants, and who murdered the Colonel.

I believe the original publication date was 1929, but it was a refreshing read and had an appropriate number of twists, turns, and quirky characters. I will read more in this series!

I’ve been meaning to read Margery Allingham (1904-1966) for years, and what better way to start than with her first Albert Campion novel, The Crime at Black Dudley (1929). The best way to describe the story is as a romp; there are elements of thrilling adventure in this tale and lots of humour introduced through the bizarre character of Albert Campion.

Most of the novel is set inside an isolated gothic country mansion–the Black Dudley of the title, and it’s here that guests gather for a weekend houseparty. There’s a small handful of guests: George Abbershaw, who turns out to be the main character, is a famous doctor who specializes in pathology “with special reference to fatal wounds.” George is there to pursue the attractive Margaret Oliphant, another member of the party. Also attending is actress Anne Edgeware, newly qualified doctor, Martin, his fiancée Jeanne, Cambridge rugger player, Chris Kennedy, a “stray young man” named Martin, and Albert Campion, who, according to Margaret is “quite inoffensive, just a silly ass.” The party is hosted by the Black Dudley’s owner, scholar, Wyatt Petrie, the “head of a great public school, a First in Classics at Oxford,a recognized position as a minor poet, and above all a good fellow.” Wyatt’s wheelchair bound elderly uncle, Colonel Gordon Coombe co hosts the event, and he encourages his nephew to bring young people down to the country in order to enjoy their company.

What should be a jolly weekend in the country is immediately overshadowed by the atmosphere of the remote forbidding house and its unwelcoming grounds:

The view from the narrow window was dreary and inexpressibly lonely. Miles of neglected park-land stretched in an unbroken plain to the horizon and the sea beyond. On all sides it was the same.

The grey-green stretches were hayed once a year, perhaps but otherwise uncropped save by the herd of heavy-shouldered black cattle who wandered about them, their huge forms immense and grotesque in the fast-thickening twilight.

In the centre of this desolation, standing in a thousand acres of its own land, was the mansion, Black Dudley; a great grey building, bare and ugly as a fortress. No creepers hid its nakedness, and the long narrow windows were dark-curtained and uninviting.

But while Black Dudley is a daunting setting, there are definitely other bad vibes in the air, and Abbershaw with a “presentiment–a vague, unaccountable apprehension of trouble ahead” almost immediately senses that two “foreigners” who never leave the Colonel’s side are very unpleasant types who seem out-of-place with the rest of the company.

Well what entertainment is there to be had at night in a vast, forbidding mansion? Someone has the brilliant idea to play a game involving the Black Dudley Ritual dagger which was used to murder a guest back in 1500. Legend has it that the dagger “betrayed” the murderer by appearing to be covered in blood when placed in the guilty man’s hands. But nowadays, the dagger isn’t used in a superstitious way to discover a man’s guilt or innocence; it’s “degenerated into a sort of mixed hide-and-seek and relay race, played all over the house. All the lights are put out, and then the dagger is passed around in the darkness for a period of twenty minutes. The person left with the dagger at the end paid a forfeit.” And so the game begins:

At length the signal was given. With a melodramatic rattle of chains the great iron candle-ring was let down and the lights put out, so that the vast hall was in darkness save for the glowing fires at each end of the room.

It’s fairly easy to guess that something horrible is going to happen in the dark, but what isn’t so easy to guess is all that happens afterwards. Crime is blended with suspense and thrilling adventure, so this isn’t a standard who-dun–it.

Since The Crime at Black Dudley is the first Albert Campion novel, it would be reasonable to expect that this character takes centre stage, but no this is primarily Abbershaw’s story. There’s the sense, since Campion is not the main focus, that author Margery Allingham didn’t quite know what she’d created with this character. He comes off initially as a buffoon, a man who performs pathetic little magic tricks which seem to be more for his own amusement than anything else. That mask slips later on, and yet we still don’t know the real Albert Campion, a man whose talents and resourcefulness, under pressure, seem endless:

‘Well then, chicks, Uncle Albert speaking.’ Campion leant forward, his expression more serious than his words. ‘Perhaps I ought to give you some little idea of my profession. I live, like all intelligent people, by my wits, and although I have often done things that mother wouldn’t like, I have remembered her parting words and have never been vulgar. To cut it short, in fact, I do almost anything within reason–for a reasonable sum, but nothing sordid or vulgar–quite definitely nothing vulgar.’

This is a novel which features the upper classes of British society, so servants are mostly invisible and the one we see in any detail is as nutty as a fruitcake. This is 1929, so German phobia–that dreaded “hun” reigns supreme, the women are frail creatures to be protected by the men, and the one bobby who appears towards the end of the book drops the ‘h’s in his speech. All these class, sex, and ethnic prejudices go with the territory, so they must be endured as relics of the age. I read some reviews by readers who found Albert Campion’s character annoying. I didn’t, but I will admit that I was a little surprised when he was initially introduced as a member of the party as he comes across as an upper-class twit, but this is a partially fake persona and Campion really comes into his own when things heat up.

review copy

Going in to this one I wasn't quite sure what to expect. While I love classic mysteries they can tend to be a little dry and can be very dated. So I was a little surprised to find that the book pulled me in quickly and the story was fairly fast paced.
The mystery itself was interesting and I did really wonder who the murderer was and why. I found Albert Campion intriguing and an interesting character. In this book he seems more like Agatha Christie's Harley Quinn than an active detective. He does more background work and facilitates Abbershaw's investigation. I don't know if that is standard or if this is just something done at the beginning. There are some hints and clues that Campion isn't quite the silly fool that he seems. He reminded me of Sayer's Peter Wimsey with his almost talking in riddles and frequently acting the fool wen there is considerably more going on but Campion seems less academic and with a more flexible moral compass. I'm definitely curious to see if and how his character develops.
My only problem with this book is that the characters -other than Campion, Abbershaw and Meggie - were very flat. This isn't all that unusual in this kind of mystery but they were so flat that I had a hard time remembering who was who which made the conclusion a little less satisfying.

A delightful read in the genre of locked room mysteries! I received this novel as an ARC from NetGalley and enjoyed the quick light read. I love British style locked room mysteries and this fit the bill. The novel is full of secret passage ways, mysterious rituals, polite society and a dangerous gang. I believe this book is a reprint from an older novel and I am interested to see how it does. I know I love this style of novel and I hope that other people do too.

I was reminded of several different literary characters including Nancy Drew, Hercule Poirot (although he doesn't usually find himself in the danger that the crew at the Black Dudley landed themselves in) and Jeeves from PG Wodehouse's novels.

The book has an interesting end and I am curious to see if future novels bring together the same cast of characters. The novel has a lot going for it including humour, mystery, and romance.

I would recommend this novel to fans of Agatha Christie, locked room mysteries, murder mystery dinner parties and fans of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

Albert Campion gatecrashes a party at Black Dudley Manor in which Colonel Coombe dies in suspicious circumstances. It turns out the Colonel was supposed to give a package to Benjamin Dawlish and it is now lost. Dawlish and his criminal gang now hold the guests captive. It becomes clear that the Colonel has been murdered to Abbershaw and the medic. However, it the quirky and mercurial Albert Campion who is instrumental in getting to the bottom of the case. Even though this is a relatively old mystery story, it is full of twists and suspense. I am glad that this novel was available currently as a Bloomsbury Reader via netgalley as it is a great example of the golden age of detective fiction. Many thanks to Bloomsbury for a copy of the book via netgalley.

I love Margert Allingham books, and I haven't read any for a time, this one just bought back to me how wonderful these writer were. This story has all the elements, mystery, abduction, thrill, murder and just unbelievable fun. I just could not put this book down and missed it very much when I finished. Trying to find some more.

The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham, republished by Bloomsbury Reader in May 2015. List price: $5.99 for Kindle.

Strongly recommended for fans of traditional or cosy mysteries, especially British manor house mysteries or the Golden Age of Mystery.

Albert Campion plays a minor, almost a cameo role, in his first appearance in the classic mystery series begun by Margery Allingham in 1929 with The Crime at Black Dudley. The story has all the hallmarks of the Golden Age Mysteries: a house party at an English country mansion in the period between the two World Wars; a murder committed during a rather ghoulish after-dinner game; secret passages connecting the most unexpected places; sinister foreigners involved in elaborate crimes; clues and misdirections that cast suspicion on just about every character, major and minor; and the satisfying ending that allows justice to prevail and good to triumph over evil.
Indeed, the latter is one of the reasons these mysteries were so popular amongst a generation that had fought or endured what was supposed to be the war to end all wars, then found themselves plunged into a worldwide economic depression. Well-written, witty fiction such as Allingham’s provided much-needed escape from a reality that was far too real.
“It’s people like you,” exclaims a London bobby in the final pages of the mystery, “wot gives us officers all our work. But we’re not goin’ to have these offences, I can tell you. We’re making a clean sweep. Persons offending against the Law are not going to be tolerated.”
“Splendid!” the hero replies . . . “Really, really splendid, Officer! You don’t know how comforting that sounds. My fervent wishes for your success.”
The Crime at Black Dudley wasn’t Allingham’s first novel, nor even her first mystery, but it is the first in a popular and long-running series that ended after her death, when her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, finished the final novel, A Cargo of Eagles, and had it published in 1968. Campion plays a major role in most of the other novels in the series, though not all.
For some of her fans, his minor role in The Crime at Black Dudley is a cause for disappointment. Campion’s often fatuous, even silly, actions and dialogue provide plenty of wit and surprises. He is, in many ways, similar to Dorothy L. Sayers’ aristocratic sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, but in this story, the hero is a rotund little physician who unravels the mystery and confronts the murderer.
“I couldn’t help it,” the physician tells the killer. “It was too perfect. It left nothing to chance.”
For those who have never read any of Allingham’s mysteries, The Crime at Black Dudley is an excellent place to start as it allows the reader to follow the development of Campion throughout the series. It may be a little slow for many of today’s younger readers, who are accustomed to a fast and furious pace in all forms of entertainment. But perseverance pays off. It’s a delightful story, a perfect example of the Golden Age of Mystery, and a great introduction to the series.

To my mind this could not really be called a Campion novel as he plays a small part and is not involved at the end for the unveiling of the killer. I found the dialogue was really good and the suspense kept up until just before the end. In the end there were two separate storylines to wrap up. The first which involved Dr Whitby and friends came to a reasonable conclusion but the second which involved the unmasking of the killer I found very difficult to grasp. I had guessed the killer but it was the reasoning which I found hard to fathom. My suggestion would be to enjoy the book for the sharp dialogue, the introduction of Campion and then just suspend belief at the end. Subsequent Campion books were much better but I still give it 4 stars and recommend it to see how the author and her character subsequently develop and flourish.

I love an old-school mystery!

This is the first Allingham novel featuring Albert Campion. In fact, Campion is a supporting character in this mystery involving a party at a country house, a mysterious medieval ritual, organized crime and, of course, murder. While the writing is not quite up to the standards of Allingham's later work, this is a thoroughly engaging and satisfying mystery.

For those who love the golden age of detective stories, The Crime at Black Dudley provides a wonderful opportunity to meet Albert Campion, that well loved, somewhat eccentric and unassuming character, whose development is worth following over a forty year career. I was surprised he began his career with a vacuous persona, given the intelligence with which he shines years later.
As with so many books of this era, it is sometimes necessary to bear in mind the times during which the book was written. This includes making allowances for the cultural norms and biases of the times. I rate it 3.7.

This is the first appearance of the wonderful Albert Campion! He actually has kind of a bit part. But it is still a great mystery and great fun to meet him in his first book. Allingham deserves and deserved to be on a par with Sayers and Christie, in my humble opinion. She is a fabulous writer. Yes, she writes in period style" in which she was writing. But that is part of the charm of her books. Her mysteries are complex. Her characters are well drawn. Her dialogue is good and her writing is beautifully descriptive.

Yes, I'm a big fan! I am thrilled her books are being reprinted. I am reading them steadily, both the ones yet unread as well as the few I read years ago. Campion, of course, was (to me) accurately portrayed on British television, so it is the TV Campion I see in my head now. And he suits the books. But if you love period cozies in the Sayers and Christie traditions, don't miss Campion and start with this one.