Even though Albert Campion's emotional experience at the end of Sweet Danger points toward the time of greater responsibility and maturity, he has in fact already had his first taste of more serious commitments, in Police at the Funeral, published in 1931, two years before Sweet Danger….

Campion, as is fitting, is presented in a more sober light, and though he continues to prattle inconsequentially, causing both Uncle William and Joyce Blount to doubt him …, his accomplished handling of a difficult case is ample vindication…. [His] "faint inconsequential air" and facility for appearing "almost imbecile" at times are natural advantages of inestimable value.

Police at the Funeral marks the author's artistic maturity: it is a novel of palpable distinction, with an atmosphere at once leisurely and menacing, writing of wit and perception, and an intricate, teasing action….

[The mystery intensifies] with every further revelation, and, at the end, an...