The Crime at Black Dudley

by Margery Allingham

Overview

Classic Crime from the Golden Age, the first in the Albert Campion Series. Margery Allingham is J.K. Rowling's favourite Golden Age author.


George Abbershaw is set for a social weekend at Black Dudley manor, hosted by Wyatt Petrie and his elderly uncle Colonel Combe, who enjoys the company of Bright Young Things. With Meggie Oliphant in attendance, George looks forward to the chance of getting closer to the girl he's set his heart on. But when murder spoils the party, the group soon find out that not only is there a killer in their midst, but the house is under the control of notorious criminals. Trapped and at their mercy, George must find a way to thwart their diabolical plans while getting himself and Meggie out alive.

Luckily for Abbershaw, among the guests is Albert Campion – a garrulous and affable party-crasher with a great knack for solving mysteries and interrogating suspects.

The Crime at Black Dudley, first published in 1929, is the first novel to introduce Margery Allingham's amiable and much loved sleuth – Albert Campion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448214211
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Series:	Albert Campion
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1
Sales rank:	55,707
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Margery Allingham is ranked among the most distinguished and beloved detective fiction writers of the Golden Age alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Allingham is J.K. Rowling's favourite Golden Age author and Agatha Christie said of Allingham that out of all the detective stories she remembers, Margery Allingham 'stands out like a shining light'.
Margery Louise Allingham is ranked among the most distinguished and beloved detective fiction writers of the Golden Age alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Allingham is J.K. Rowling's favourite Golden Age author and Agatha Christie said of Allingham that out of all the detective stories she remembers, Margery Allingham 'stands out like a shining light'.

She was born in Ealing, London in 1904 to a very literary family; her parents were both writers, and her aunt ran a magazine, so it was natural that Margery too would begin writing at an early age. She wrote steadily through her school days, first in Colchester and later as a boarder at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, where she wrote, produced, and performed in a costume play. After her return to London in 1920 she enrolled at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where she studied drama and speech training in a successful attempt to overcome a childhood stammer. There she met Phillip Youngman Carter, who would become her husband and collaborator, designing the jackets for many of her future books.

The Allingham family retained a house on Mersea Island, a few miles from Layer Breton, and it was here that Margery found the material for her first novel, the adventure story Blackkerchief Dick (1923), which was published when she was just nineteen. She went on to pen multiple novels, some of which dealt with occult themes and some with mystery, as well as writing plays and stories – her first detective story, The White Cottage Mystery, was serialized in the Daily Express in 1927.

Allingham died at the age of 62, and her final novel, A Cargo of Eagles, was finished by her husband at her request and published posthumously in 1968.

Date of Birth:

May 20, 1904

Date of Death:

June 30, 1966

Place of Birth:

London

Place of Death:

Colchester, Essex, England

Education:

Endsleigh House School, Colchester; the Perse School, Cambridge; and the Regent Street Polytechnic, London

Editorial Reviews

"To Albert Campion has fallen the honor of being the first detective to feature in a story which is also by any standard a distinguished novel." - Observer

"Margery Allingham is notable for the energy and inventiveness of her writing." - P. D. James

"Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light." - Agatha Christie

From the Publisher