The Fear Sign (Albert Campion Mystery) aka Sweet Danger [Paperback]

This is one of the best Margery Allingham books ever, and that's saying a good deal. It is an excellent example of her unique mix of the English "golden age" detective story with the old fashioned thriller.

It comes from her early period, when the emphasis is on eccentricity and fun, in a warm feel-good inter-war English upper middle class context. But it also has elements of a thriller, with fights as well as conundrums, which saves it from mere self indulgence and introduces a dark side, which came to dominate in later books like "Tiger in the Smoke".

The plot has a number of strands but they are woven together very tight - it revolves around a treasure hunt with international diplomatic implications, making it really matter. But it is quirky and witty throughout, and introduces Allingham's top detective character, Albert Campion, to Amanda Fitton, who in later books becomes his wife.

It's romantic, funny, extraordinarily well written, pacy, clever in conception, flawless in execution, with a dark shadow thrown across it by the villains and plenty of colourful characters, both good guys and bad guys, men and women. It may not be realistic, but it can't be beaten for entertainment value.

Unusually for a book of this type, it bears re-reading many times.

A must for fans; an excellent introduction to the writer for others.

Excellent as a book - even better as an audio book, particularly with the superlative Phillip Franks presenting it. He brings the story to life.
Well worth its five stars.

This was the first Allingham I read, but I was 12 at the time and didn't really understand it - particularly the seemingly inappropriate inanity of Campion. Since then, I have revisited it several times and it is now one of my favourite books by any author. Sweet Danger contains: adventure, detection, humour, romance, and one of the most intelligent fictional treatments of black magic that I have ever read. As with all good fiction, it helps to have sufficient knowledge of the time it was written to make the plot credible. For here we have a fictional hereditary fiefdom situated near the ancient independent maritime power of Dubrovnik, and a taste of rural English life in the 1920s that is not too far removed from the feudal period.

The novel is set in Allingham's favoured Suffolk - this time the north west near the border with Norfolk. The author paints a wonderfully evocative picture of life in out-of-the-way English places early in the last century, including a decrepit water mill, a pub friendly but not overly-welcoming of strangers, some weird customs, and the wonderful house of one of Allingham's greatest characters - the decidedly creepy Dr Galley - suffering from decades of social isolation and too much of the wrong sort of reading! Not that this tale lacks competing compelling characters. In addition to Galley, Campion, and Lugg, these include: Brett Savanake - a super-industrialist (also creepy) used to getting his own way whatever the cost to others, Amanda Fitton - brave, clever, vibrant, technical - later to become Campion's wife (although 16 years younger!), Hal Fitton - Amanda's pompous younger brother, Scatty Williams - Amanda's helper in running the mill and a wonderful, admiring sidekick for Lugg when the going gets tough, plus many other minor but important players. Campion's task is to prove Hal to be the legal heir to the fiefdom, pitted against the ruthless determination of Savanake and his criminal hirelings.

Here, Allingham intelligently develops the character of Campion in a pacey yarn that you will find hard to put down. In addition to the clever, funny - but infuriatingly inane - adventurer of the past, we have Campion the deadly-serious - but only occasionally, and Campion the courageous super-hero - his final showdown with the gargantuan Savanake is breath-taking. We also see the first steps leading up to Campion's eventual marriage to Amanda. She figures large in several subsequent novels, where the ups and downs of their relationship often form a key part of the plot. To successfully combine all these elements in a well-constructed and well-written tale takes literary skills of the highest order. Fortunately, Allingham was well up to the task.