Margery Allingham is preeminent among the writers who brought the detective story to maturity in the decades between the two world wars. She created an aristocratic, unassuming detective called Albert Campion, who matured from "just a silly ass" of the 1920s to an eminent intelligence veteran forty years later. He ranks high among the great detectives of fiction but does so unobtrusively, disdaining self-advertisement. Other recurrent characters contribute richly to the Campion series: Campion's wife, Amanda; his manservant, Lugg; and his police associates, Stanislaus Oates and Charlie Luke. The novels and stories in which they appear are among the most distinguished in the genre--vivacious, stylish, observant, shapely, intricate, and witty. They are unfailingly intelligent and imaginative, even when they do not wholly succeed.

Allingham regarded the mystery novel as a box with four sides-"a Killing, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction...