Mr Campion's Coven

by Mike Ripley

Overview

Albert Campion is in the bleak, remote and very muddy village of Wicken on the Essex coast on a mission to rescue Dame Jocasta's dog, but soon finds himself sinking into something far more dangerous.

East coast of England, 1971. Harvard student Mason Clay is writing a thesis on a group of settlers who travelled to America from the remote Essex coastal village of Wicken-juxta-Mare 300 years ago. Clay plans to visit Wicken as part of his research, and who better assist him with all things Essex than Albert Campion?

But Wicken is already firmly on Campion's radar thanks to Dame Jocasta Upcott's luxury yacht found beached on a mudbank close to the village, its captain very stuck - and very dead - in the mud. Was it a bizarre accident or something more sinister? Agreeing to Dame Jocasta's request to recover her beloved pet pooch, Robespierre, Campion finds himself in Wicken, surrounded by suspicious locals and tales of witchcraft, and soon discovers its past is linked to a number of current disturbing events . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448312276
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	11/28/2023
Series:	An Albert Campion Mystery , #8
Edition description:	Main - Large Print
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.79(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mike Ripley has twice won the Crime Writers' Association's Last Laugh Award, and is the author of twenty-four comedy thrillers and historical novels. He writes a hugely respected monthly review column for Shots Magazine entitled Getting Away With Murder and is also the author of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a 'reader's history' of the heyday of British action and spy thrillers, 1953-75, which won the H.R.F. Keating Award for non-fiction in 2017.

With Mr Campion's Farewell (Severn House, 2014 and Black Thorn, 2019), he completed a manuscript left unfinished in 1969 by Margery Allingham's widower, Pip Youngman Carter. He regards the follow-ups including Mr Campion's War, Mr Campion's Visit and Mr Campion's S ance as his attempts 'to fly solo with, and do justice to, a great fictional character'.

Editorial Reviews

Filled with dry wit, laugh-out-loud banter, well-paced action, and quirky characters, this latest opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the ever-charming Campion will delight series fans old and new

Booklist

You can trust Campion (along with his grizzly bear of an assistant, Magersfontein Lugg), just as you can trust the talented Mr Ripley

Crime Time on Mr Campion’s Visit

Albert remains a winning protagonist, possessed of both eccentric charm and dry wit, and this time Ripley gives him a particularly meaty case, full of noteworthy twists. Another winner in a reliably entertaining series

Booklist on Mr Campion's Séance

Wonderfully genteel, appealingly old-fashioned, gently humorous, always entertaining, and eminently readable

Booklist Starred Review of Mr Campion’s War

★ 04/19/2021

It’s 1971 in Ripley’s exceptional eighth outing for Margery Allingham’s sleuth Albert Campion (after 2020’s Mr. Campion’s Seance), and the yacht belonging to Dame Jocasta Upcott, a force in the British theatrical world, has been found abandoned on an Essex mudbank, with the only sign of life the boots of the yacht’s captain, Francis Jarrold, stuck in the mud 50 yards away. Dame Upcott wants Campion to search for her dog, Robespierre, who was aboard the vessel, not Jarrold. Since finding Robespierre will benefit his actor son, Rupert, Campion agrees. He winds up having to solve a murder that may be linked to an Essex witches’ coven that sailed to Massachusetts in 1692 and landed in Salem at the time of the witchcraft trials. Ripley skillfully injects humor into the twisty plot, and elements reminiscent of the classic horror film The Wicker Man add to the creepy atmosphere. Both old and new Campion fans will hope for many more exploits. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Good Allingham, good war spy thriller

Marcel Berlins in The Times on Mr Campion’s War

Exceptional ... Both old and new Campion fans will hope for many more exploits - Publishers Weekly Starred Review

Filled with dry wit, laugh-out-loud banter, well-paced action, and quirky characters, this latest opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the ever-charming Campion will delight series fans old and new - Booklist

A highly satisfying showdown - Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Albert remains a winning protagonist, possessed of both eccentric charm and dry wit, and this time Ripley gives him a particularly meaty case, full of noteworthy twists. Another winner in a reliably entertaining series

Albert remains a winning protagonist, possessed of both eccentric charm and dry wit, and this time Ripley gives him a particularly meaty case, full of noteworthy twists. Another winner in a reliably entertaining series

Booklist on Mr Campion's Séance

Wonderfully genteel, appealingly old-fashioned, gently humorous, always entertaining, and eminently readable

Booklist Starred Review of Mr Campion’s War

You can trust Campion (along with his grizzly bear of an assistant, Magersfontein Lugg), just as you can trust the talented Mr Ripley

Crime Time on Mr Campion’s Visit

Good Allingham, good war spy thriller

Marcel Berlins in The Times on Mr Campion’s War

2021-03-17
An American graduate student tracing the Essex roots of a mysterious 17th-century colony on the Outer Banks arrives in England just in time for some very contemporary murder.

This much is known: Back in 1692, a hardy group of villagers from Wicken-juxta-Mare signed the Billericay Covenant, took passage on the Abigail, and set sail for Salem, Massachusetts. Those who didn’t care for their new home headed farther south to Harkers Island, where a few of their descendants still speak with a pure Essex accent. Harvard anthropologist Kathryn Luger’s student Mason Lowell Clay, who wants to know more about the immigrants and their covenant, writes Rupert Campion, who met professor Luger when he was a Harvard student eight years ago in 1963, to ask for help with his inquiries. Rupert’s father, aging detective Albert Campion, offers Mason gratis accommodations but is preoccupied with what seems to be quite another case: the matter of veteran actress Dame Jocasta Upcott’s dog, Robespierre, and the captain of her yacht, the Jocasta, both of them missing ever since the yacht ran aground in the mud of Wicken. Capt. Francis Jarrold is relatively dispensable, but not Robespierre. So it’s very lucky indeed that Rupert finds the dog alive, although the man who vanished with him has died. Mason’s research uncovers a great deal of new information about the Billericay Covenant, none of it uplifting, and suggests that the questionable activities of the locals nearly 300 years ago have taken a disturbing new turn. Ripley lays out all this material more conscientiously than he knits it together, and the appealing franchise hero is pretty well buried under all the skulduggery.

Despite a highly satisfying showdown, not Mr Campion’s finest hour.

Kirkus Reviews